One of the hardest things for children after their parents get divorced is that they typically have to move back and forth between two houses. Say you and your ex share custody, each taking the children every other week. That’s a lot of movement for the children, especially if they’re also moving out of the only family home they have ever known and into two new homes at once.
It also means that they have to coordinate a lot. What if they don’t have their favorite toys at both houses? What if they forget something important at your ex’s house? You know how big of an issue this can be for a young child. It’s very stressful for them.
One option to give them a bit more consistency and stability is to try out birdnesting. You keep the family home. The children stay in that house 100% of the time. They never need to move, they keep their own rooms, they always have their favorite toys and they do not feel like their everyday lives changes very much.
What you do, as parents, is to move in and out of the house. If you switch custody once a week, you just trade places in the home. Some couples also buy or rent an apartment that they can share on the other weeks, or they each have their own place for those weeks.
This is a bit of an unorthodox approach, but you can see why it may work. It at least shows you why it’s so important to consider all of your options.
