Parenting-time calculator: from schedule to overnights.

By where the child sleeps. The statute defines shared physical care by the number of overnights each parent has in a year, and the 2026 parenting-time table converts that number into a credit percentage (C.R.S. 14-10-115(3)(h), (8)(h)). Count the regular rotation over its cycle, multiply out to a year, then add or subtract holidays, breaks and summer blocks that depart from the rotation. Where the children have different schedules the worksheet uses the average.

Friday and Saturday nights every other week is 52 a year; adding Sunday night with a Monday morning school drop-off makes it 78. Adding a midweek overnight every week to the Friday-to-Sunday pattern gives 104; every other long weekend Friday to Monday plus a Wednesday every week gives 130. Holidays and summer blocks are on top of those figures and usually add 10 to 40 nights for the parent with less time.

Half of 365. Equal-time schedules such as alternating weeks, 2-2-3, 2-2-5-5 and 3-4-4-3 give each parent 182.5 overnights on average, and the parenting-time table has a row for exactly that number: a 50% credit each. Plans that describe equal time usually count it that way rather than arguing over which parent gets the odd night in a leap year.

Each parent has the same two weeknights every week, Monday-Tuesday with one and Wednesday-Thursday with the other, and the weekends alternate, Friday through Sunday. The result is two-night and five-night blocks: five nights when a parent’s fixed weeknights run into that parent’s weekend. It is popular with school-age children because the weeknights never change.

Two nights with one parent, two with the other, then three with the first; the next week the pattern flips. Each parent has the children every other weekend and no one goes more than three nights without seeing them, which suits younger children. It requires more exchanges than 2-2-5-5 and the weekdays alternate each week.

Yes, and gradually. Since March 1, 2026 every overnight earns a credit, so there is no longer a cliff at 93 nights. At 52 overnights the credit is 5.27% of the basic obligation; at 104 it is 16.54%; at 130 it is 25.58%; at equal time it is 50%. The child support calculator on this site applies the table and shows the result; the link on the results panel carries your overnights straight into it.

Every night counts, wherever it falls. Most plans allocate holidays and school breaks separately from the regular rotation and alternate them by year, which often nets to roughly even. Where it does not, for example summer blocks for a parent with a school-year schedule, add the net nights in step two. Count nights, not days: a holiday spent from morning to evening with a return before bedtime is not an overnight.

Yes. The guideline factors listed for deviation include a parent who spends substantially more time with the child than the overnight count reflects, and extraordinary costs of parenting time, such as long-distance travel (C.R.S. 14-10-115(8)(e)). A parent with the children every day after school but few overnights can ask for a deviation; the court must make findings if it grants one.

Long-distance plans usually give the away parent blocks of time: several weeks in summer, alternating major holidays, and sometimes long weekends during the school year. Tick the school-year-and-summer option and enter the summer weeks, holiday nights and any regular weekend pattern. The relocation page covers how those plans are decided.

The parenting-time schedules page walks through each rotation, its exchange points and the ages it tends to suit, and the parenting-time-by-age page summarises the research. The parenting plan page covers the clauses that make a schedule work: exchanges, holidays, right of first refusal, travel and communication.