Colorado

Parenting plans in Colorado: two documents in one Parenting plans in Colorado: two documents in one

Parenting plans in Colorado: two documents in one

A Colorado parenting plan is really two allocations under one caption, because Colorado law splits parental responsibilities into separately-decided components: parenting time (the schedule) and decision-making responsibility (major decisions, allocated jointly or individually — even subject by subject). That structure is a design opportunity most parents never use: the schedule can be equal while decision-making is tailored to each parent's actual strengths, or vice versa. Courts must approve whatever you build against the best-interest factors — and if parents submit no workable plan, the court drafts one itself. Judges are competent drafters. They are not inspired ones. Build your own and control your outcome.

Designing the parenting time component

Colorado has no equal-time presumption, but equal schedules are common where logistics cooperate — and Front Range logistics (distance, traffic, school zones) decide more schedule disputes than doctrine does. The architectures differ meaningfully: week-on/week-off minimizes exchanges and maximizes stretches apart; 5-2-2-5 and 2-2-3 keep contact frequent at the cost of transitions; long-distance and mountain-west realities (one parent in Denver, one in Durango) need block scheduling and travel logistics spelled out. Age matters: Colorado practice increasingly designs infant/toddler plans around frequency, adolescent plans around flexibility and the child's own life.

And since 2026, every overnight carries visible support math — Colorado's graduated credit means the schedule and the worksheet move together: child support in Colorado.

Designing the decision-making component

Joint decision-making is common but not presumed — Colorado allocates it based on the parties' demonstrated ability to cooperate and their history of shared decision-making. The craft options: full joint allocation with deadlock mechanics (consultation windows, mediation-before-motion), split domains (education to one parent, medical to the other), or sole allocation where cooperation is genuinely impossible or violence makes joint authority unsafe — a factor Colorado's statute addresses expressly. Be honest at the drafting stage: a joint allocation between parents who can't exchange a civil email is future litigation with a signature line.

What durable Colorado plans add

Exact exchange terms (times, places, transportation, lateness rules); holiday priority order with hours; travel and passport protocols; communication rules — apps, response windows, the child's contact with each parent; right-of-first-refusal thresholds sized against surveillance games; information-sharing covenants (school portals, medical records — both parents' statutory rights, restated so nobody relitigates them); and review triggers keyed to ages and school transitions. When life outgrows the plan anyway, Colorado's layered modification doors await: modifications in Colorado. And when the dispute is really about capacity or safety rather than calendars: high-conflict custody in Colorado.

Drafted like we'll have to enforce it

Brown Carrington designs Colorado plans component by component — schedule, decision-making, deadlocks, geography — for the worst day, not the best one.

Straight answers.

Does Colorado require a parenting plan?

Parties in every APR case must submit proposed plans (jointly or separately) — and the court adopts, modifies, or replaces them under the best-interest factors. Someone will write your plan. It should be you.

Can decision-making really be split by subject in Colorado?

Yes — subject-matter allocation is standard Colorado practice: education to one parent, medical to the other, mapped to demonstrated strengths.

Do we have to do 50/50?

No presumption exists. Equal time is common where evidence and logistics support it; the statutory factors, not a default, decide contested cases.

What's the most common Colorado drafting mistake?

Joint decision-making granted on hope rather than history — followed closely by schedules that ignore Colorado geography. Both are drafting problems; both are preventable.