What is the current schedule? Is the 3 nights over a week-end? Eg Friday, Saturday, Sunday? And one midweek night as well?
A 50/50 schedule would be the 3 night week-end mentioned above, plus 2 consecutive midweek nights. So if you had Monday Tuesday every week, then on alternate weeks, when it's your week-end, they would be tacked on to make 5 nights (eg Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon, Tues).
So no three nights is not too much. However, ideally a schedule has to work for both parents (the kids will usually accept it if both parents are ok with it but my son for example did say he didn't want to be away from either parent for more than 3 or 4 days and didn't like just one night here, he wanted two nights. So I did have him here every 3 or 4 days. But unfortunately got stuck with a single midweek night - he got used to it.
It does sound like she is emotionally manipulating them though and she shouldn't be calling them all the time.
It is better if you can sort it out without court or she might diss you to the children - if she's like this over them spending 3 nights with you, imagine what she'd be like if you applied to court - crying all over them and saying Dad is causing her problems etc.
If mediation hasn't worked, you could try a BIFF email trying to negotiate. BIFF = Brief, Informative, Friendly, Formal. Keep all personal tone out of it. With it being slightly formal as well it might make her decide to try and agree something as she might get the feeling that you could start doing something official, by the wording.
So you could maybe send something like this (but need to know what the current schedule is first).
"Dear Ex Name
Arrangements for the children
As we have been discussing recently at mediation, I'd like us to agree a suitable schedule for the children with both of us. I feel the current arrangement works very well - it means the children get a good week-end with both of us on alternate weeks, but get to see me midweek for 1 night a week as well. This is a fairly standard arrangement for children with separated parents and it's in the childrens best interests to have regular and significant time with both their parents.
However I understand you are not happy with them being away from you for three consecutive nights. I am concerned your anxieties about this are going to affect the children, and it's important that we discuss and agree this between us, in their best interests. The children will be happy in either home with either of us. It is not easy for us to not see them every day of the week- I would also like to see much more of them, but accept that their care needs to be shared between us as they need both of us.
We could adjust the schedule slightly if that helps but I propose the following:
Every other week-end with me on alternate week-ends from school on Friday through to school drop off on Monday (and the same with you the alternate week-end). Alternate Monday nights and Thursday nights with me. So the Thursday night would follow their week-end with me and the Monday night would follow their week-end with you. This would mean they spend 3 out of the 4 midweek nights with you each week, but would only go 3 or 4 days between seeing me - so they see both of us regularly each week.
Please let me know your thoughts on this proposed agreeement. I don't agree that 3 nights away is too long for the children. When it comes to holidays it will be longer than that, and if it was a 50/50 shared care arrangement, the children would be away for 5 consecutive nights fortnightly.
Kind regards - you"
