Marc and Louise had been split for some time before I had met Marc, so there was two separate household already existing. Probably the first thing that I noticed (and this is probably the nurturing side of a female v a male) was that the kids didn’t have individual rooms set up (although rooms were available).  I helped Marc to establish separate rooms for the kids and we invested in furniture/beds etc so that the kids had their own space and own things. This then mirrored the setup at Louise’s house – own rooms = own space. This is so important for kids – they need to feel they are secure and have a feeling of belonging at both homes. We made sure we had spare clothes, toys and sports gear so that if they changed dates to come over, or extra visits, that we had fully functioning household that catered to the kids needs. Both homes had boundaries/rules that the kids followed – and these rules were different – this is ok, as long as the kids know the rules at each house (and we kept them as similar as possible) there isn’t issues – boundaries/rules around living arrangements actually show the children that you care.

The biggest thing to be conscious of when there are two seperate homes, is that you need to be organised, plan well and communicate well so that when the kids live between the homes, everyone is aware of the daily/weekly/monthly activities going on, so things are not missed. The kids routinely had sports or other activities on weekends, and if something was forgotten, it was not uncommon for us to either turnaround and drive back to their other home that night or the next day – we got better at checking we had everything packed ready for sleepovers! We also tried as much as possible to always have spare clothes, spare sports clothes and spare school clothes available at our place so if things were not packed, that we were ok for the busy weekend schedules. I really can’t reinforce enough how important the planning, organising and communicating across households is – if the kids are young, then primarily this is all done with the adults, but as the kids get older, you are able to teach them about responsibility and organisation by asking them to pack bags and check for everything they need.

We quite regularly would have Lou  over for dinner if she had done the drop off/pick up, and vise vera. The kids always loved the interaction between all the family members, so for us this was something we kept doing over the years. Even now, we still have dinners at either Louise’s home or our home – and the kids are 18 and 21 now! I point this out, as you can have a civilised and happy family living in two homes and achieve the best outcome for the kids. Marc and I now have Jess, who is 4, and she just loves the interaction and fun that she now shares across the two homes as well.

Once we had decided to separate, I was fairly certain that I wanted to make sure that the children felt like they had 2 of everything rather than 1. That meant two houses, two bedrooms, two sets of clothes.  To me that was better than saying we’re separating and you now only have half of everything.  Living separately definitely has it’s draw backs though and it can take quite a lot of organisation to get things working smoothly.  I remember sometimes during high school when Reggie had sport, he would pack his bag in the morning with a change of clothes for Dad’s tomorrow, training gear for the afternoon, training gear for the next morning, and a different set of training gear for the following afternoon.  He would have everything lined up on his bed before he packed to make sure he didn’t forget anything.  One thing having two houses does for kids in my experience is make them very organised!  There’s nothing worse than getting to the other house and finding out you’ve forgotten something very important.  I’m sure you’ll all relate to the last minute dash of a sports shirt, or particular shoes either to school or the other parent’s house!

I have met a lot of people who are very concerned at the beginning about how living arrangements will pan out.  The first thing to remember here is that children are resilient and will adapt to situations easily.  If you both communicate the plans to the children up front, and they can see that everyone is on the same page, they are more likely to go along happily with the plan.

Some people prefer to have week about, some keep flexible arrangements because of working and traveling commitments.  Some like to have every Friday night and Saturday, some like alternate weekends.  Whatever you work out, in my experience, children work best with a routine.  Forewarned is forearmed –  so try and stick to it, try and be helpful with each other in sticking to the plans (whilst being flexible when necessary) and keep everyone including the step parents in the loop.  The adults need to stick together for the children to feel safe, secure and loved.

 

1. Try and set up both homes with rooms/belongings so the children have a feeling of safety and security no matter whose house they are at
2. Have standard routines in place
3. Be organised and flexible at the same time, even the best laid out plans sometimes don’t work, so be flexible/open to changes