Week On / Week Off Custody Schedule
The simplest equal-time rotation there is: seven nights in one home, seven in the other, one handoff a week.
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The repeating cycle, day by day
| Days 1 to 7 | Day 1A | Day 2A | Day 3A | Day 4A | Day 5A | Day 6A | Day 7A |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Days 8 to 14 | Day 8B | Day 9B | Day 10B | Day 11B | Day 12B | Day 13B | Day 14B |
This pattern is commonly described as a 50/50 split. That figure comes from counting the overnights in the cycle above. It is the pattern's own arithmetic, not a legal standard, and no state requires this or any other rotation.
Why week on week off is the simplest 50/50
There is almost nothing to memorize. The child spends a complete week with parent A, then a complete week with parent B, and the loop repeats. Two blocks, two exchanges per fortnight, one per week.
Everything a shorter rotation juggles daily gets handled once. School papers, sports gear, and instruments migrate on a single day, then stay put for seven nights.
The overnight ledger is even by construction, seven nights against seven, so the equal-time label needs no footnote.
What the pattern asks in return is tolerance for absence. Seven nights is a long silence for a young child, which is why this rotation appears mostly in plans for older children and teenagers, often paired with a standing midweek dinner at the off-week parent’s home.
It is also the equal-time design most forgiving of distance. With one exchange a week, homes 30 or 40 minutes apart can run it without the drive dominating anyone’s life, as long as school stays reachable from both.
Fitting week on week off to a family
Teen logistics favor this schedule. Older children carry their own routines, prefer fewer disruptions, and often ask for full weeks by name once they have a say in the plan.
The whole-week block changes how each parent lives. On-duty weeks are full-time parenting. Off-duty weeks are genuinely open for work travel, long shifts, or rest. Some parents find the alternation restorative; others find the quiet week painful.
The common softener is a written midweek touchpoint, a Wednesday dinner or a scheduled video call, placed in the plan itself so it survives busy stretches instead of depending on goodwill.
When this pattern tends to fit
- Teenagers and older school-age children
- Parents whose jobs alternate heavy and light weeks
- Families wanting the fewest possible exchanges
Honest downsides
- Seven nights apart is usually too long for young children
- An illness or a trip swallows a large share of a parent’s month
- Both homes must run a complete school-week routine unassisted
Overnights over a year
Block length 7, cycle length 14, two handoffs per cycle. Fifty-two exchange days a year, the fewest of any pattern in this library.
Yearly totals: 182 overnights each, plus one leftover night whose owner shifts as the years turn.
See it on real dates
Open the custody schedule generator and choose the Week on / week off to lay the cycle over an actual calendar, starting from any anchor date. To turn the rotation into a yearly overnight count for a support formula, use the parenting time calculator.
Week on / week off FAQs
How many exchanges does week on week off involve?
One per week, 52 in a year. That is a third of what 3-4-4-3 requires and a sixth of 2-2-3, which is why families with long commutes or tense handoffs often land here.
What day do families usually exchange on?
Friday after school and Sunday evening are the two common picks. A Friday handoff gives the incoming parent the weekend to settle the child before classes resume. A Sunday handoff lets the outgoing parent finish the weekend they started. Midweek exchange days work too and keep every weekend whole.
Can young children handle week on week off?
The seven-night gap, not the pattern itself, is the concern. Many plans hold full weeks in reserve: a young child starts on 2-2-3 or 2-2-5-5, then steps up later. Adding a midweek overnight at the off-week home cuts the longest wait roughly in half without changing the weekly frame.
How do the overnights count over a year?
Twenty-six weeks with each parent covers 364 nights, and the year’s odd night falls into whichever week is running. Each household hosts about 182 overnights, an exact half in every practical sense.
Does week on week off affect child support?
It can, in states whose formulas count overnights, because it puts each parent near 182 nights. Whether that moves the support number depends entirely on the state formula. The parenting time calculator on this site turns the rotation into the count those formulas use.
About the numbers on this page
Custody schedule patterns are scheduling conventions used by families, mediators, and courts. They are not law. No statute mandates any rotation on this page, and no agency publishes an official version of them, so this page cites no statutes. Every count and percentage above comes from the pattern's own cycle, which you can verify against the day-by-day table. For how a state's support formula treats parenting time, see that state's page on this site.
Reviewed by SupportDecode Editorial Team Page content reviewed Sources Methodology Update log
Changelog: page first published as part of the custody schedule library. Material changes are dated in the update log.