Custody Schedule Maker (Parenting Plan Calendar)

About the Custody Schedule Maker (Parenting Plan Calendar)

Build the parenting-time calendar of a year from the rotation you use — alternating weeks, 2-2-3, 2-2-5-5, 3-4-4-3, every other weekend with a midweek visit, your own custom cycle, or the Texas Standard Possession Order — then lay holidays, birthdays, school breaks and summer blocks over it, with rules such as “Parent A in even years” or “split in two halves, swapping each year”. Every night is shaded for the parent who has it, every handover is listed with its time and place, and the summary counts each parent’s nights, days and hours for each month and for the year.

The checks flag gaps (nights nobody has), double bookings (two rules that give the same time to different parents) and handovers at odd hours. A swap log records the changes you agree and a shared-expense ledger works out who owes whom at your agreed split. The free preview builds the whole schedule from your entries and shows it as the plan’s pages, marked “not for use”; a Pro pass unlocks the printable plan PDF, one .ics calendar file for each parent and the CSV files. Everything stays in this browser.

Common uses

• Parents drafting a parenting plan together, or comparing what each proposal means in nights and hours.
• Separated parents keeping one calendar of the agreed schedule, with every handover and swap written down.
• Texas parents seeing what a standard or expanded standard possession order gives in their school year.
• Tracking shared costs — school, medical, activities — and settling up at the agreed split.

The rotations

• Alternating weeks (7-7): one week each, usually changing on the same weekday.
• 2-2-3: two nights, two nights, then the three-night weekend, alternating each week — each parent sees the child every few days.
• 2-2-5-5: each parent keeps the same two weekdays every week and the weekends alternate, giving runs of 2, 2, 5 and 5 nights.
• 3-4-4-3: three and four nights in the first week, four and three in the second.
• Every other weekend (optionally with a midweek visit or overnight), or one home with visits only.
• Custom: any cycle of up to 56 nights, written as letters (AABBAAABBAABBB is 2-2-3).

The rotation repeats before and after its first night, so the calendar can start in any month.

Holidays, alternate years and splits

Holidays and breaks override the rotation; agreed swaps override everything. “A in even years, B in odd years” uses the year the holiday starts in. A split break gives the first half to one parent and the second half to the other, and swaps the halves each year — the usual way to share a winter break. Where two holidays overlap and give the time to different parents, the later one in the list applies and the checks name both, so nothing is double-booked without you knowing.

Texas Standard Possession Order

The Texas preset draws the periods of the Texas Family Code’s standard possession order for one calendar year from your school dates:

• the possessory conservator’s weekends from 6 p.m. on the first, third and fifth Friday of each month to 6 p.m. Sunday, and Thursday 6 to 8 p.m. during the school term (§153.312(a));
• spring break in even-numbered years (every year when the parents live more than 100 miles apart), and 30 days of summer — July 1 to 31 without written notice by April 1, or 42 days (June 15 to July 27) farther apart (§§153.312(b), 153.313);
• Christmas: the possessory conservator from the day school lets out to noon December 28 in even-numbered years and from noon December 28 to the day before school resumes in odd ones; Thanksgiving in odd-numbered years; the child’s birthday from 6 to 8 p.m.; Father’s Day and Mother’s Day weekends (§153.314);
• weekends extended by a Monday or Friday holiday (§153.315), and the expanded times — from school dismissal to school resumption, with the Thursday overnight — that apply when elected or, for parents within 50 miles, unless declined (§§153.317, 153.3171). For parents more than 100 miles apart those times change the holiday periods, while the regular weekends and spring break of §153.313 keep their 6 p.m. times.

It does not draw the one-weekend-a-month option for parents more than 100 miles apart, orders that vary the standard terms, or orders for children under three.

How time is counted

Courts and child-support guidelines count parenting time differently, so the summary shows three measures. A night belongs to whoever has the child at midnight (or the time you choose). A day belongs to whoever has the child for more of that calendar day — a tie counts half each. Hours are clock hours between handovers; daylight-saving changes are ignored. The Parenting Time Calculator compares two proposed schedules side by side.

Exports and backups

With a Pro pass: a printable plan PDF (a summary page with each parent’s share, the year calendar on one page, every handover, the holidays and swaps, the checks and the expense ledger), one .ics calendar per parent in the iCalendar format (RFC 5545) for Google Calendar, Apple Calendar or Outlook, a day-by-day CSV and the expense CSV. Your own entries are never locked: tick Keep this plan in this browser, or save a backup file locked with your passphrase (AES-256 in your browser) to move the plan to another device.

Limitations

• A planning aid, not legal advice: the court order or your written agreement always prevails. Have a family lawyer or mediator review a plan before it is filed or signed.
• One 12-month calendar at a time; repeat for the next year (alternate-year rules switch by themselves).
• School dates, holiday dates and times are yours to enter and check against your district’s calendar; quick-add dates are suggestions for the calendar’s first year.
• Times are wall-clock times without time zones. Calendar files use floating local times, which calendar apps show in the device’s own time zone.
• No messaging between parents: share the PDF or the calendar files yourselves.

Privacy

Everything happens in your browser: names, dates and expenses are not uploaded or stored by MySmartCoPilot. Keep this plan in this browser saves it in this browser’s local storage until you untick it; a backup file is encrypted with your passphrase before it is saved.