Shared Custody Schedules: Week-On/Week-Off, 2-2-3, or 2-2-5-5
The three shared custody schedules all give each parent seven nights out of fourteen. What changes is how long each stay lasts: seven nights in a row with week-on/week-off, five at most with 2-2-5-5, three at most with 2-2-3. The right choice mostly comes down to what a handover actually costs in your family's day-to-day life.
Published on August 9, 2026 · updated on October 1, 2026
When people say "50/50 custody," most picture one week with one parent, one week with the other. That's the most common schedule. Two others come up often too, 2-2-3 and 2-2-5-5, and they split the exact same amount of time in very different ways for the child.
Shared custody schedules at a glance
All of them give each parent half the nights over a full cycle. What sets them apart is the longest single stay and how many handovers happen each month.
| Schedule | Cycle | Longest stay | Handovers per month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week-on/week-off | 14 nights | 7 nights | about 4 |
| Two weeks on/two weeks off | 28 nights | 14 nights | about 2 |
| 2-2-5-5 | 14 nights | 5 nights | about 9 |
| 2-2-3 | 14 nights | 3 nights | about 13 |
Week-on/week-off
Seven nights with each parent, with the handover usually happening Friday after school or Sunday evening. Few handovers, a school week that stays intact, a calendar you remember without checking it. Many court orders write this as alternating odd and even weeks, which takes a bit of care in 53-week years, like 2026.
The downside is just as simple: seven nights without seeing a parent is a long time for a four-year-old, and even longer for a two-year-old.
The 2-2-5-5 schedule
Each parent always has the same two weeknights, and the weekends alternate along with the days around them. Over two weeks, it looks like this:
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | A | A | B | B | A | A | A |
| Week 2 | A | A | B | B | B | B | B |
Monday and Tuesday are always with A, Wednesday and Thursday always with B. That's where the name comes from: two nights, two nights, then five (Friday through Tuesday) and five (Wednesday through Sunday). Wednesday or Monday activities always land with the same parent, which makes logistics much easier. It's often the step between 2-2-3 and a full week.
The 2-2-3 schedule
Two nights, two nights, three nights, then the pattern flips the following week:
| 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 stay goes past three nights. It's the schedule most often suggested for young children, and the most demanding one for the adults: thirteen handovers a month, a bag to repack every time, and two homes close enough together that school stays the same without stretching out the mornings.
Two weeks on/two weeks off
The same idea as week-on/week-off, just stretched out. It shows up mainly when the two homes are far apart and every handover eats up hours of driving, or when a parent works long shift cycles. It calls for a child old enough to go two weeks without seeing the other parent, and parents who keep in touch in between.
How to choose
The total number of nights doesn't settle anything, it's the same across every schedule. What decides it is what a handover actually costs in your real life: distance, school pickup time, work hours, the child's age, and how easily they move between the two homes. A 2-2-3 between two nearby streets is gentler than week-on/week-off across forty kilometers. That same 2-2-3 across forty kilometers quickly becomes unworkable.
Take Inès and Paul, a 3-year-old daughter, two apartments ten minutes apart on foot. They start with 2-2-3: their daughter is never away from either parent for more than three nights. Once she starts her last year of preschool, repacking bags every other day wears everyone out, her included, so they switch to 2-2-5-5, which keeps Wednesdays with Paul every time. Around age 7, they may take the step up to a full week.
What about the child's age?
In France, no law sets a minimum age for shared custody. Article 373-2-9 of the Civil Code allows it with no age floor, and Article 373-2-11 gives the judge a set of criteria in which age is never the only factor. The rules of thumb that come up most, without being any kind of standard: short stays before age 3, 2-2-3 or 2-2-5-5 between ages 3 and 6, a full week after that. For younger children, the details are in shared custody for a baby or young child.
In the teenage years, the question changes: activities, friends, and the teen's own say carry more weight, and many families loosen the schedule in practice without changing it on paper.
Switching schedules
A schedule chosen for a 3-year-old doesn't have to last until they're 15. If a change is meant to stick, write it down: a dated agreement signed by both parents beats a habit that each parent remembers differently two years later. For it to carry the weight of a court order, it needs to go through an agreement approved by the judge. The framework is explained in how shared custody works.
What Nestido does with this
I built Nestido to keep our own schedule. The app offers seven options: week-on/week-off, odd and even weeks, 2-2-3, 2-2-5-5, “Every other weekend”, “Even / odd weekends”, or a custom cycle you write yourself in nights. You choose it once, starting from a date, and the following months fill in on their own. If you switch schedules, stays already confirmed stay as they are. To see where you stand over the year, check counting nights without the arguments.