What 2-2-3 means
Over a two-week cycle each parent has the children for seven nights. In week one, Parent A has Monday and Tuesday, Parent B has Wednesday and Thursday, and Parent A takes the weekend, Friday through Sunday. In week two it flips: Parent B has Monday and Tuesday, Parent A has Wednesday and Thursday, and Parent B takes the weekend.
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | A | A | B | B | A | A | A |
| Week 2 | B | B | A | A | B | B | B |
No child is away from either parent for more than three nights, which is the whole point. The cost is the number of handoffs: six in a fortnight, against two for alternating weeks.
Who it suits
- Younger children. Under about six, three nights is a long time to be away from a parent. 2-2-3 keeps both parents in the child's week.
- Parents who live close. Six handoffs a fortnight only work when the drive is short and the schools, doctors and friends are shared.
- Parents who get along. Every handoff is a small conversation. Families in conflict often move to schedules with fewer of them.
The two ways to run it
Fixed weekdays. The Monday-Tuesday parent is always the Monday-Tuesday parent; only the weekend alternates. This is easier to remember and gives each parent a predictable school-night routine, but one parent always has the start of the week.
The full alternation shown above, where everything flips each week. It is fairer over time, and it is the one that needs a calendar, because nobody can hold it in their head past next Thursday.
Where it goes wrong
Two mistakes account for most of the confusion. The first is drawing the pattern from a different starting day than the other parent did, so the two calendars disagree by a week. The second is changing the handoff time without saying where the day belongs: if the handoff is at 5:30 on Wednesday, Wednesday is Parent B's day, and the person who had the morning still had a day with a handoff in it.
The fix for both is the same: one calendar, agreed once, that both parents read from. In CoCoparent the schedule is a pattern you set once, both parents have to agree before it changes, and every day of the year is drawn from it.
Variations to compare
- 2-2-5-5. Fixed Monday-Tuesday and Wednesday-Thursday parents, with the five-day weekend blocks alternating. Fewer handoffs, longer stretches.
- 3-4-4-3. Three nights, then four, alternating. Even split, and each parent keeps a consistent weekday.
- Alternating weeks. One handoff a week. The simplest schedule and the longest time away, which is why it tends to arrive as children get older.
Whichever pattern you use, the record of what happened during the other parent's days matters more than the pattern itself. That is what the app is for.