Q: Do the courts in Nebraska only consider nights as days you have your child? I have him 2 nights but 3 days a week.

A: Per the Nebraska Child Support Guidelines, the Court looks at overnights when determining how many "days" a child is with each parent to determine whether to use the joint custody or sole custody calculation for child support purposes.

A: The Nebraska Child Support Guidelines state that a "day" shall be "generally defined as including an overnight period." Thus, if a parent has a child for 2 nights and e days, the Court would generally count that as only 2 days for purposes of calculating how many days each parent has when calculating child support.

Generally, a parent must have 5 overnights out of every two weeks before the court will even consider using the joint custody calculation for child support. The joint custody calculation for child support generally results in a much lower order of child support, but then does trigger other support obligations. For example, if the joint custody calculation is used, then the parent is generally ordered to pay a certain percentage of the child's extracurricular activities and sports expenses, school expenses (but not private school tuition), and also potentially towards the child's clothing expenses, among potentially other costs.

The Nebraska Child Support Guidelines are fairly short and are available on the Nebraska Supreme Court's website. If a parent wants to know more about child support in Nebraska, the Guidelines are worth a read.