Figuring out week on week off schedule and avoiding giant stretches?

[Ichiban]

For those who do a 50/50 share situation that also switch out holidays on a yearly turn based basis, may I ask how you overcome those random calendar days falling and giving one parent or the other gigantic stretches of time?

We're going from a half week swap situation into this now our three daughters are older.

I've been trying to figure out a clever way around it that would benefit both sides, (perhaps the parent who's turn for the adjacent holiday it is somehow having their week altered or swapped) but nothing is coming to me.

Any help would be tremendously appreciated.

My thanks.

[MixedBag]

This is thinking outside the box.....but me -- and this is as  result of my experience with one short term close distance divorce (for the rest of the years it was long distance), I would switch or alternate the child mid-week (Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday).

Why?  When we shared weekends and did the EOW weekend thing, Fridays and Sundays were "booked" by the terms defined by the court.  So it was hard to schedule a weekend getaway with the kids. 

When you share the EOWeek situation, either on Friday or Sunday or on the weekend you find yourself bound by the order to swap homes.  So you'll never get to take off on a Friday and return on a Sunday for a weekend.  Around here -- that's the "thing" to do in the summer -- run to the beach which is a beautiful as the Carribean. 

Think long term when you set this up.

As for the Holidays -- one idea would be that all Holidays are from 12 noon the day before to 12 noon the day of.  Mom gets all of them even years Dad gets odd years with the exception of Thanksgiving.  Dad gets odd and Mom gets even.  Flip flop one important one.  LIST the holidays out and then add a "to include but not limited to" and if you're dealing with a (witch/bastard) define ONE religion to follow -- so that it prevents the other side from celebrating Christian holidays, Muslim holidays, Jewish holiday, and let's throw Kawanza out there too.  Or list them out and split them odd/even.  Look at the school calendar for 3-day weekends -- those should be included.

If there's cooperation, there's so much that can be done.

[ocean]

My friend is doing A week, B week. Little harder to do and each week you have different days but it works for them (same school district so kids get bused to both houses). Holidays are listed separately on most orders, if it is not listed, you don't get it so remember Father's day, Mother's day, Halloween, birthdays of parents and kids.... Holiday schedule supersedes regular week but like MB said, the holiday schedule can be detailed to add day before/day after or all of thanksgiving break (odd/even). Also can have an additional stipulation that if either parents has child more than X days due to holiday and reg schedule and they are not away on vacation that the other parent gets a dinner visit ?

[MixedBag]

isn't the other idea a 5 - 5 - 2 - 2...split?

[Ichiban]

Many thanks for the replies!

Can you explain what you mean by 5-5-2-2, and what it's trying to accomplish?

Having been given the duty of figuring this out, or at least trying to, I need to explain the reason behind the new suggestion so I have to understand it .
If there's a way of sharing weekend time, it doesn't necessarily have to been a week on week off (7 days) situation, but because we already do 4-3-4-3, one person always has all weekends, and one all week. This is a lot of work to the person on school duty, and so it seemed this was the next best step to equalize and make matters fair.

In response to the other answer, all holidays other than specific ones swap out every year. So birthdays remain fixed. Mother's day fixed, etc.

Not too interested in the trifling add on make up stuff like meals and so forth as it feels like it interrupts their flow to have less than a 2 day week.
I just want to avoid.. For instance if it's Mother's house turn for spring break, and it's superseded by their week (if we were doing a week on week off situation), they will have their week, spring break and then another week, making it a pretty unacceptably long time in my book to not see my children, or my ex wife not to as well.

[MixedBag]

5-5-2-2 is very similar to your set up now...

[ocean]

Maybe add a stipulation that when a holiday week ends, the every other week starts up again with the other parent. So mom has week before spring break, then spring break then dad starts right after (not mom's week again). That will make it no more than 2 weeks.
If you get along with ex, maybe unofficially say that when that happens the other parent will allow a dinner visit so you do not go 2 weeks.