Guides for co-parents
Practical information about care arrangements, agreements, and everyday coordination across two homes.
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Care arrangements explained
An overview of the most common models — alternating weeks, 3-4-4-3, 2-2-5-5, and others. What works for different age groups?
Writing a care agreement — what it should cover
A practical guide to what belongs in a written care agreement between co-parents.
The first months as co-parents — finding your footing
Practical guidance for parents in the first months after separation.
Care arrangements
Care arrangements explained
An overview of the most common models — alternating weeks, 3-4-4-3, 2-2-5-5, and others. What works for different age groups?
Choosing a care schedule that fits
Why the fit between a rotation and a family's circumstances — the distance between homes, each parent's working week, the child's age — matters more than the name of the pattern, and how to choose one that holds.
What a care schedule distributes
Why the name of an arrangement hides what it actually distributes — the weekends, school nights and handovers each home ends up with, and how to read the pattern before agreeing to it.
Shared residence vs. primary residence — what is the difference?
What it means in practice for everyday life, decision-making, and the child's rights.
Why the words for shared care change at every border
Custody, residence, Wechselmodell, primary residential parent: separated families meet a different vocabulary in every country for the same arrangement.
Travel consent letters for children of separated parents
France, Germany and the UK require different paperwork, triggered differently, when a child crosses a border with one parent.
Birdnesting — when the child stays and the parents move
The arrangement where the child stays in one home and the parents rotate in and out — why it suits the months right after a separation, what it costs, and why it is usually a stage rather than a settled pattern.
Sharing holidays and school breaks
Common ways separated parents divide school breaks and the long summer, plus why agreeing dates early prevents most conflict.
Summer holidays across two homes
How to split the break, handle travel and consent, and keep the child settled across two homes.
The Christmas school holiday across two homes
How separated parents split the whole Christmas and New Year break — not just the day — including New Year's Eve, travel, and returning to the regular routine.
Agreements and money
Writing a care agreement — what it should cover
A practical guide to what belongs in a written care agreement between co-parents.
What a written care agreement actually looks like
A worked example of a written care agreement — schedule, holidays, decisions and money spelled out the way a functioning plan actually reads.
When a care agreement needs to change
Why an arrangement that fitted a young child stops working as they grow, the ages that trigger a change, and how to revise it without reopening every disagreement.
Family mediation — what the process looks like
What happens when separated parents bring care decisions to a neutral mediator — the MIAM and mekling steps, what mediation can and cannot decide, and what to bring to make a session work.
Splitting expenses across two homes
What counts as a shared cost, how to split it fairly, and how to keep money conversations from spilling into everyday messages.
How child maintenance amounts are decided
What feeds into a child maintenance calculation, why overnight stays and income shift the number, and what happens when it becomes a dispute.
Everyday life in two homes
Handover day — how to make transitions easier
Practical tips for smoother handovers between homes.
What your child needs in each home
A practical checklist — what should be in both homes, and what should follow the child.
Different rules in two homes — what consistency really matters
Some differences between homes are fine; a small number genuinely need to match. A practical guide to which is which.
Screen time and technology rules across two homes
Screen-time rules often diverge between two homes. Research on parental mediation styles explains why, and what is worth aligning.
Birthdays across two homes
How to plan birthdays when a child has two homes — splitting the day, celebrations, and keeping the focus on the child.
School and co-parenting — staying coordinated
How to keep two homes aligned with school — contacts, parent-teacher meetings, homework, sick days, and what to do when a child is struggling.
Medical and school decisions across two homes
Which decisions about a child's health and schooling need both parents' agreement, which do not, and what happens when parents disagree.
Starting kindergarten or school across two homes
What research says about the start of kindergarten and school, and how parents in two homes can share information, drop-offs and goodbyes.
Blended families in two homes
How blended families settle in after separation — stepsibling dynamics, aligning rules across more adults, and when the care agreement needs to change.
A new half-sibling across two homes
What research on half-sibling relationships predicts about closeness, and how to help a child adjust when a co-parent has a new baby.
Christmas across two homes
How co-parents split Christmas Eve and Day, when to agree the plan, gifts and traditions in two homes, and what to do when you cannot agree.
Gifts across two homes
Why gift-giving becomes a comparison point at Christmas, what research says about children and materialism, and how co-parents agree a budget without competing.
A sick child across two homes
How separated parents coordinate a child's illness: doctor's appointments, medication between two homes, and what to do when they disagree on treatment.
Communication and cooperation
Communication between co-parents
Why structure helps, and how to keep the tone factual when it concerns the child.
The coordination load in shared care
The invisible scheduling and reminding that shared care generates, why it falls unevenly between two homes, and the structures that reduce it.
Parallel parenting
What parallel parenting is, when it helps high-conflict parents, and how structure and limited contact protect the child while both stay involved.
No-contact handovers
Why the handover is where conflict between separated parents resurfaces, and how school pickup, fixed locations, and third parties remove it.
Introducing a new partner to your children
When and how to introduce a new partner — timing, telling the other parent, age-appropriate pacing, and what to expect from the child.
Grandparents' contact rights after separation
How the legal right to see grandchildren after a separation differs by country, and what research says about why the relationship matters.
Long-distance co-parenting
How shared care works when one parent moves away — schedules across distance, staying present between visits, travel, and protecting the child.
Ages, stages and research
The first months as co-parents — finding your footing
Practical guidance for parents in the first months after separation.
Shared care for babies and toddlers
What developmental research says about overnight stays, routines, and protecting attachment for children under three.
Co-parenting a teenager — when schedules need flexibility
How shared-care arrangements change as a child becomes a teenager — flexible schedules, social autonomy, and when to renegotiate.
What research says about shared care and child wellbeing
What systematic reviews and Nordic research find about which care arrangements help children — and the factors that matter more than the schedule.