The 2-2-3 care schedule
In a 2-2-3 rotation the child spends two days with one parent, two with the other, then three, and the blocks swap the following week. Over a fortnight the split is exactly even, and the child is never away from either parent for more than three days.
| Week 1 | Week 2 | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | ||
| Parent A | |||||||||||||||
| Parent B | |||||||||||||||
A fortnight of this rotation. The top row is one parent, the bottom row the other.
How the rotation works
Week one runs two days with the first parent, two with the second, then a three-day block back with the first. Week two mirrors it, so the long weekend alternates. Because the cycle is 14 days, the weekdays a parent has change from one week to the next.
Often works when
- The child is young — under about 6 — and a full week without seeing a parent is too long.
- The homes are close enough that a handover is a short trip rather than an evening of driving.
- Both parents have enough flexibility at work to manage a change every two or three days.
Worth watching
- Roughly 130 handovers a year. Each one is an opportunity for something to be forgotten or for a disagreement to surface.
- The weekdays rotate, so neither parent has a fixed day. A recurring Tuesday swimming lesson has to be checked against the pattern.
- It asks more of the parents’ cooperation than any other common rotation. Where conflict is high, longer blocks are usually calmer.
Questions about this pattern
What does 2-2-3 mean?
The numbers are the length in days of each block: two days with one parent, two with the other, then three. The following week the blocks swap, so across a fortnight each parent has seven days.
Is a 2-2-3 schedule suitable for toddlers?
It is one of the most common patterns for children under 6, because no gap between seeing a parent runs longer than three days. The trade-off is frequency — roughly 130 handovers a year — which only works when the homes are close and the parents cooperate easily.
What is the difference between 2-2-3 and 2-2-5-5?
Both give an even split, but 2-2-5-5 fixes the weekdays: the same parent has Monday and Tuesday every week. In 2-2-3 the weekdays rotate, which is harder to memorise but keeps the longest gap to three days instead of five.