Is it really better for a small kid to mostly be with their mother?

That is definitely too many switches which makes life very unstable. You probably wouldn't want to switch your bedroom every other day, just like your ki.

A nice 50/50 option that I have seen is that the kid is with parent A from Monday to Wednesday, parent B from Wednesday to Friday, parent A from Friday to Wednesday, parent B from Wednesday to Monday and then you start over. So parent A always gets Monday to Wednesday, parent B always Wednesday to Friday and for the weekends, the parents take turns: one week, you tack the weekend onto parent B's time after Friday, and the other week, parent A already gets the weekend before "their" Monday. This way, the kid always only has to change twice a week (once from A to B and once from B to A).

/r/Parenting Thread Parent