Custody & Parenting Time Planner
Type your parenting time schedule in plain English — "Mom Mon–Fri, Dad Sat Sun", alternate holidays, summer week-on-week-off, whatever fits your family. The calendar fills in as you type, and you can fine-tune any day by clicking. When you’re done, save a clean copy for your attorney or the court.
Write it the way you’d say it ("Mom Mon–Fri, Dad Sat Sun"), pick a starting point below, or let the wizard walk you through it.
How this works: Type rules and they’re applied broadly across the year. Click any day to fine-tune it — those clicks stay put even when you change your typing.
Guided wizard — build a schedule by answering questions Wizard
Answer a few questions and the calendar updates as you go. We’ll cover the week-to-week pattern and holidays, breaks, and any summer differences — so don’t close the wizard until you’ve answered all the steps you care about. Click Done when you’re happy, or Start Over to clear and try again.
Examples & reference
What the parser understands:
- Parents: Mom, Dad, Mother, Father, Mommy, Daddy, Mama, Papa, P1, P2, Parent 1, Parent 2, Parent A, Parent B, Primary/Secondary parent, Residential parent, or the names you set above.
- Days & ranges: Mon, Tuesday, Mondays, weekdays, weekends, school days, school nights, school week, business days, long weekend, first/second half of week, midweek; "Mon-Fri", "Wed through Sun", "Fri until Mon", "Mon to Thu".
- Weeks: week 1, week 2, w1, w2, wk 1, wk. 2, first/second week, 1st/2nd week, week one/two. Section prefix: Week 1: Mom weekdays, Dad weekends. Context propagates within a line.
- Alternating: every other, alternate, alternating, bi-weekly, fortnightly, every second week, swap weekly, switch weekly, rotate, rotating, week about, on-off week → Week A only; other week auto-fills.
- Exchange times: "Fri 5pm to Mon 8am", "Fri at 5pm until Mon 8am", 17:00, 5:30pm. Named times: noon, midnight, bedtime, breakfast, lunch, dinner, after school, before school, after work, early/late morning, early/late afternoon, evening. "Half past 5", "quarter past 5", "quarter to 5" all parse as expected.
- Filler (ignored): picks up, drops off, exchange, handoff, overnight, sleepover, has/gets/keeps the kids, visits, visitation, sees/takes/brings/returns the kids, "at" before a time, sharp, around, approximately.
- Holidays & breaks: Federal (Christmas Day, Christmas Eve, New Year's Day, New Year's Eve, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Independence Day / July 4th, MLK, Presidents', Veterans, Juneteenth, Columbus), NY State (Lincoln's Birthday, Election Day), family (Easter Sunday, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Halloween), and school breaks (Winter Break, Mid-Winter Break, Spring Break). Add year parity: Mom Christmas odd years, Dad Thanksgiving even years, Mom Spring Break alternating. Breaks apply to the whole date range.
- Rotate all holidays at once: Alternate holidays (P1 odd, P2 even by default), Mom all holidays odd years, Dad all holidays even years, alternate holidays odd years for Mom and even years for Dad. Use all breaks to target just the school breaks, or all holidays and breaks to include both.
- Seasonal / date-range rules: Put a schedule on its own line with a date range and it applies only during that window. Examples: from July 1 until August 31 week on and week off, June 15 to August 15 alternate weekly, between Dec 20 and Jan 5 Mom Mon-Fri, Dad Sat-Sun. Dates accept "July 1" / "Jul 1st" / "7/1". The rule inside the range can be any valid schedule syntax.
- Sentence-style input: Type how clients actually speak. "I would like a 2-2-3 schedule", "I want a week on and a week off", "We need a 5-2-2-5 rotation", "The schedule will be Mom Mon-Fri, Dad Sat-Sun". Filler like "I would like / I want / please / can we / the schedule should be" is automatically stripped.
- Named presets: 2-2-3, 3-4-4-3, 5-2-2-5 all expand to the standard rotations. week on and week off, week on / week off, alternate weeks all give classic week-on-week-off alternation.
- Day counts: "2 days with Dad, 2 days with Mom" assigns the first parent to Mon-Tue and the second to Wed-Thu. Combine with "alternate the weekends" for a 2-2-3-style schedule.
- Weekends in this calculator: weekend / weekends means Friday through Sunday (the parenting-time convention). weekdays still means Mon-Fri; if you type both in the same line, the rule typed last wins on Friday.
- Smart default: mention just one parent and the other automatically fills in the rest of the schedule.
- Layering: Keep adding lines. New rules override older ones on overlapping days. Manual calendar clicks are preserved when text changes.
Holidays & School Breaks none assigned yet tap a holiday to assign it — tap again to switch parents, again to clear
Frequently Asked Questions About Parenting Schedules
Does the number of overnights affect child support in New York?
The parenting schedule determines who the custodial parent is for CSSA purposes — generally the parent with the majority of overnights receives support. In true 50/50 arrangements, New York courts generally treat the higher-earning parent as the payor. Run your schedule here, then check the numbers with our child support calculator.
What parenting schedules do New York courts approve?
Any schedule that serves the child’s best interests under Domestic Relations Law § 240 — courts approve 2-2-3 rotations, alternating weeks, school-year/summer splits, and shift-work schedules keyed to a work calendar. Consistency and workability matter more than the template.
Can we create our own custom holiday schedule?
Yes — and you should. A stipulated parenting plan that spells out holidays, school breaks, and vacation time controls over default assumptions, and detailed plans prevent most post-divorce conflict. This planner helps you build and compare exactly those schedules.