Full time night shift and divorce with small children

[studentsara]

If you work full time as an RN (3 12hr shifts/week) and are divorced with school age children, how does your custody agreement look? Im a night shift nurse and this may be in the cards for me but honestly I cant figure out how custody would work. My possible ex is a good dad, I would be ok with 50/50 custody if need be and I think he would be amenable to be somewhat flexible.

Thanks in advance for any input!

[adpiRN]

I just made a separate post on a similar subject!

I'm trying to find a schedule that works for us.

I'm part time days though.

I'm thinking of proposing a 4 day weekend with dad every third weekend (Thurs-Mon), then a week with me, 3 overnights with dad Mon, Tues, Wed, then a week with me and repeat..

I think clustering the shifts is probably better for the child because less back and forth.

How old are your children?

My son is almost 4.

[vintagemother, BSN, CNA, LVN, RN]

I've heard that one nurse I know has a situation with her ex that is flexible, and his custody days are the days that she works. I think that is nice if the two can work together.

As for me, and I hope I don't come across as bitter, but as a woman who wants to protect herself and her children.

I work nights and wish and have sometimes day-dreamed of how nice it would be if my kid could simply go to his dad's house on the days I worked.

However, I've seen several situations in which the mom chose to be "fair" and split custody 50/50 to find out that he did it so that he could 1) pay less child support 2) use the time to encourage the kid(s) to live with him 3) appeal to the court for primary custody since he often has a live in or a mom and doesn't need childcare at all 4) use the shared custody as a means to control where the mom can move, live, or send kids to school.

When my husband And I were newly separated, I used to send my kids to my Husbands moms house for childcare early in the mornings before Clinicals and I'd pick up my kids later in the afternoon.

(I truly wanted and thought my kids should have the same extended family relationship during our tumultuous divorce as they'd had during our marriage.)

What happened next was my pre-teen kid didn't want to live with me and accused me of child abuse (with the adults propping him up and supporting him doing this) and a few months later, I had to go to court to prove I wasn't abusing my other,younger kid (age 7/8 at the time).

So I don't trust my ex to be my daycare or give him additional time to coparent.

I pay the childcare costs without asking him to pay a portion because I don't want to open that can of worms. I've been living this way for 4 yrs. I don't ask him or his family for help ever with childcare. I simply pay a licensed provider and an after school program.