How to share custody of infants is a hot topic. Too hot. Ever since I completed my research, I have gotten volumes of e-mails. When I speak about very young children at professional meetings, which is often, I attract large crowds. Most of the judges, lawyers, and psychologists in the audience are more than eager for guidance. They are desperate.   Sure, some of these professionals think they know what is best--based on their preconceived beliefs. Not too long ago, I gave a long workshop to a group of about thirty judges.

I reviewed all kinds of issues and evidence for them. After the talk, one judge lingered. He came up to me and said, "You're an entertaining speaker." I smiled at the compliment. Then he said, "But I'm a fifty-fifty guy."   This is who might be deciding your case--a "fifty-fifty guy" or maybe an "every other weekend guy" or a "no overnights guy."   But your family isn't a case, is it? We're talking about your baby.   As I discuss in Chapter 4, expert opinion about the best schedule for babies is all over the map.

Some suggest that parents should swap their babies across households. Frequently. There are experts who argue that babies benefit from swapping homes, and cribs, every day or two.   At the other extreme are experts who think it is fine for a very young child to have a daytime visit, or two, with the "other" parent every week, or two. Many experts on this side of the fence tell parents that infants and toddlers should sleep in the same bed every night, and have the same caregiver available to comfort them, if needed. Some want this pattern to continue until a child reaches age four or so.   And then there are the courts. Judges all over America, all over the world, are faced with warring parents, dueling experts, and the politics of "mothers' rights" versus "fathers' rights.

" In the face of controversy and uncertainty, some judges are ordering parents to raise their babies according to untenable, seemingly abusive schedules. Breastfeeding can be used as a reason to deny more than a few hours of visitation with the father--or condemned as a manipulative tactic of "visitation interference." Some judges allow parents to see their babies only for a few brief hours, every other weekend. Other judges order parents to transport their babies across long distances so they can swap their infant on a schedule where a week or more passes before the child sees the other parent again.   What does such a grand experiment in "fairness" do to an infant?   Over the course of decades of practice and research on child custody disputes, I have refused a great many invitations to appear in court as an expert witness. My reasoning was (and remains) simple. I want parents to work together, make their own coparenting decisions, and stay out of court.   After more than thirty years of work as a psychologist, family therapist, mediator, and researcher, I broke my rule.

A few years ago, I was compelled by outrage to testify in court for the first and only time in my long career. My testimony, in essence, suggested that a judge had erred in awarding week on/week off custody to the parents of a one-year-old baby. The parents lived a six-hour drive apart from each other. They were so angry and uncooperative that when they met on the highway to swap their baby, they refused to share information--or blankets, cuddly toys, or even medicine.   To the judge, the plan seemed fair to everyone. It may have been, except to the most important one: the baby.