Childly

A shared schedule for separated parents

Launching soon

Nobody has to remember.Nobody has to ask.

A shared schedule for separated parents. Every pickup, practice and handover shows the adult who has it, or an amber flag when nobody does yet.

One board for the next 45 days, shared by both households.
Covering is one tap. Asking someone else is a question they answer.
When a plan breaks, the app says so before the day does.
A tone check holds a hostile message before anyone sees it.

Visit getchildly.com

Launching soon on the App Store. Free on iPhone.

An illustration of the schedule. The names are made up.

Most of what goes wrong between two households is not a disagreement. It is Thursday. One parent assumed the other was collecting. A work trip moved and the swimming lesson quietly lost its adult. By the time anyone notices, a child is standing outside a school. Childly is built for the gap: the week stops living in one parent’s head, and “I thought you had them” stops being a conversation.

What a week looks like

Three things happen over and over. The app is shaped around them.

Everything for the next 45 days sits on one board.

School pickup, piano, the weekend away. Each activity names the child, the time and the place, and shows the adult who has it. A day with anything still uncovered says so in its header, with a count.

School dropoff

Saturday 8:00 AM · Lena, Max

School pickup

Saturday 3:15 PM · Lena, Max

Piano practice

Saturday 4:00 PM · Lena

Needs cover

Two of Saturday’s activities have an adult. Piano practice does not, so it stays amber until somebody takes it.

Covering something is one tap. Asking someone else is a question, not an order.

An amber row is itself the claim button: tap it, and it’s yours, with Undo beside it for five seconds. Ask a different adult and they get a real answer to give. While an ask sits unanswered, the activity stays open for anyone else to take.

Soccer practice

Sunday 10:00 AM · Max

Needs cover

Soccer practice

Sunday 10:00 AM · Max

Asked

Maya asked Ben to take Sunday’s soccer practice. Until he answers it reads Asked, and anybody else can still take it.

When a plan breaks, the app says so before the day does.

Mark yourself away for a work trip, and everything you had agreed to cover inside that window turns red, with the reason attached, and the other adults are told. If something is still uncovered 48 hours out, the people who could take it get a nudge.

Swimming · Ada

Thursday 4:15 PM · pick-up

Lost cover

Swimming · Ada

Thursday 4:15 PM · pick-up

Ben marked himself away on Thursday. The pick-up he had agreed to cover turned red and Maya was told. She took it, and it reads Confirmed.

The tone check

The message that never gets sent.

The draft is checked before anything is written anywhere. If it reads as hostile aimed at a person, nothing goes into the thread: no message, no notification, nothing on the other parent’s phone. Your own screen shows a card like this one.

The rewrite keeps what you actually needed. The day, the time, the child and the request all survive. Only the part aimed at a person does not.

What happens next is yours. Delete it, send it anyway, or use the suggestion. The other parent is never told a draft was held.

Childly does keep one number about you: how many drafts it has held. Nobody in your circle can read it, and the only person who ever sees it is the reviewer at Childly handling a report about a message you sent.

What it is not.

It is not a wall. Send anyway is one tap, and the message goes exactly as you wrote it. Ordinary frustration is not hostility. A message with photos and no text is not checked at all. And if the check cannot run, because the provider is unreachable or you have hit the hourly limit, your message sends unchecked and nothing marks it.

Not sent yet

This reads as an insult aimed at the other parent, not as a request.

You wrote

You’re always late, idiot — get the kids at 5

Maybe try

“Please be on time today — the kids need picking up at 5.”

DeleteSend anywayUse suggestion

Only the sender ever sees this card. The other parent sees nothing at all.

The stance

What Childly will not do.

No lateness statistics.: No response times, no compliance summaries, no monthly report on the other household.
No read receipts.: “Seen at 9:41” is ammunition.
No editing a message after it is sent.: Letting one parent rewrite what the other already read manufactures more of it.
No open emoji picker.: Reactions are a fixed set, so a reaction cannot become the one unmoderated channel.
No score your circle can see.: The one count Childly keeps is the held-draft count, and no member of your circle can see it.
No blame in the history.: When a plan breaks because somebody marked themselves away, the history credits Childly, not them.

It also will not take a side, fix a relationship, or reduce anybody’s conflict. It coordinates logistics. That is the whole job, and doing only that is the point.

Also in Childly

The money, and the people who do the driving.

Shared costs, with an answer on them.

Every shared cost goes in with an amount, a child, who paid and a split, and the other household answers: that’s right, or I disagree, with a reason. Childly records money; it does not move it.

More adults than two.

A new partner can create activities and take handovers. A grandparent or babysitter can see the schedule and cover things, and can never author the calendar. Private messages stay private to the two people in them.

An illustration of expenses. The names are made up.

Questions

Questions people actually ask.

What can the other parent see?

Everything in the circle, with two exceptions: your private one-to-one messages, which nobody else can read, and the expense ledger, which a partner or helper sees only while a parent has granted it.

What if my co-parent will not use it?

Then use it on your own. A circle with one parent works: your schedule, your reminders, and any partner, grandparent or babysitter you add on your side. You can invite them later with a code without redoing anything.

Is it really free? What is the catch?

Childly is free on iOS. There is no subscription, no paid tier and no in-app purchase. There are no ads, no analytics SDKs, and we do not sell personal information or use your family’s content to train AI models. Our Terms do reserve the right to charge for something in future, which is why we will not say “free forever”. What we will say is which part: the shared schedule, coverage, messages, the tone check and reminders are free for both parents and will stay that way, because the app does not work unless both of you have them. Anything we ever charged for would be an extra one person could buy for themselves. You would be told before it took effect and you would see a price before paying anything.

Is there an Android app?

No. Childly is an iPhone app. There is no Android version and no iPad app.

More on getchildly.com, including where your family’s information goes

Start with one Thursday.

Put next week in. Invite the other household when you are ready. See whether the amber count goes to zero.

Visit getchildly.com