Email is the fastest way to reach us.
Daycare Guardian is made by one developer, so replies come from a person, usually within two business days.
Reporting a problem
You don't need to write anything formal. But if you can include these, it usually saves a round trip:
- What you expected to happen, and what happened instead.
- Which screen you were on — Home, History, Profile, or a specific settings screen.
- The date and rough time it happened, and your time zone. (If it's about a missed alert, the day and the expected drop-off time matter most.)
- Your iPhone model and iOS version — Settings → General → About.
- The app version, shown at the bottom of the Profile screen.
- A screenshot, if there was something on screen worth seeing.
Please don't email us your password, and there's no need to send your child's details. We can help with almost anything from the account email address alone — so write from the address you signed up with.
Getting started
One person sets the family up. Everyone else joins with a code. It doesn't matter who goes first.
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Create your account
Open the app and sign up with your email address, a password, and your name. Your name is what the rest of the family will see next to each drop-off, so use the one they'd expect — "Dad" is fine if that's what everyone calls you.
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Create your family — or join one
Choose I'm the first one here and give the family a name. If someone has already sent you a code, choose Someone shared a code with me instead and type it in; everything below will already be set up for you.
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Add your child and their schedule
Enter their first name. Then pick the days they normally go, the time they're expected to be dropped off by, and how long to wait past that time before the app tells everyone nobody has logged a drop-off. The wait — the grace period — starts at 20 minutes and can be anything from 0 to 240. Later: Profile → Children & schedules.
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Add your drop-off locations
The daycare, the preschool, a grandparent's house — anywhere a child actually gets left. Give each one a name, and an address and phone number if you want them handy. These are just text you type; the app never uses GPS or looks anything up. Later: Profile → Places.
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Allow notifications
Say yes when iOS asks. This is the whole point — without it you won't be told when the other person logs a drop-off, and you won't get the missed drop-off alert.
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Share the join code
Go to Profile → Your family and send the six-character code to the other caregivers. Each of them installs the app, signs up, and enters the code. From then on everyone sees every entry and everyone gets every notification.
Treat the join code like a house key. Anyone who has it can join your family and then see your children, your locations, your emergency contacts and your whole history. Send it to the people who do the school run, and nobody else. The family owner can generate a new code at any time, which stops the old one from working.
Using it day to day
- Drop Off — tap the big button on the home screen and pick where you left them. The time is stamped by our server, not your phone, so it's always the real time. Everyone else gets a notification.
- Pick Up — same button, no location to choose. A child can only be collected from where they were left, so the app already knows.
- History — every day, who did what, where and at what minute. Days that should have had a drop-off and didn't are flagged so you can see them at a glance.
- Notes — add a comment to any day in History. It shows up for the family with your name on it.
- Emergency contacts — one tap from the home screen, then tap a name to call.
How the missed drop-off alert works
If nobody has logged a drop-off for a child by their expected time plus the grace period, the app sends a time-sensitive alert to everyone in the family. Time-sensitive means it can break through Focus modes, because being on Do Not Disturb is exactly when you'd want to know.
- It only runs on the weekdays you marked as daycare days for that child. Weekends, days off and holidays you've unticked stay quiet.
- It fires at most once per child per day.
- It goes to everyone in the family, including whoever was supposed to do the run.
- It stops mattering the moment somebody taps Drop Off — log it, and no alert goes out.
- You can switch it off per child, and leave it on for another.
It is a reminder, not a safety device. The app can't detect a child and can't observe anything — it only knows whether somebody pressed a button. Please read "Not a safety device" before you rely on it, and if you're ever worried about a child, call someone rather than waiting for your phone to buzz.
Troubleshooting
Notifications aren't arriving
Almost always one of these three, in this order:
- Check iOS. Settings → Notifications → Guardian — Allow Notifications on, and Lock Screen, Notification Center and Banners all ticked. While you're there, check that a Focus mode isn't set to silence it, and that the phone isn't in Silent with banners turned off.
- Check the app. Profile → Notifications tells you what iOS currently thinks, and gives you a shortcut to the right Settings screen.
- Check the other person actually joined. This is the common one. Open Profile → Your family and look at the member list. If their name isn't there, they haven't joined yet — they may have installed the app and created their own separate family instead of entering your code. Send them the code again and have them join yours.
Still nothing? Sign out and back in on the phone that isn't receiving them — that refreshes the device's push registration.
The join code isn't working
- It is always six characters, like K7M2QP.
- The alphabet deliberately leaves out the characters people mistype: there is no letter O and no digit 0, no letter I and no digit 1. If you're typing one of those, it's the other character you want — or a different one entirely.
- Case doesn't matter. Spaces don't either; just don't add extra characters.
- If the code was regenerated, the old one stopped working the moment it was. Ask the owner for the current one from Profile → Your family.
- Rather than reading it out, tap Copy code or Invite someone and send it in a message — that removes the guesswork entirely.
Changing the expected drop-off time, days or grace period
Profile → Children & schedules, then tap the child. You can change the daycare days, the expected time, and how long the app waits past that time before alerting everyone. You can also turn Alert us if no one drops off off entirely for that child, or turn off the expected time altogether if their schedule isn't fixed — with no expected time there's nothing to be late for, so no alert is sent.
Turning text messages on or off
Profile → Name & phone. Add a phone number, then switch Text messages on. It's per person: turning it on for you does nothing to anyone else, and push notifications work with or without it. To stop texts, switch it off; to remove the number entirely, clear the field and save.
Something was logged by mistake
It can't be edited or deleted, and that's on purpose — a record anyone could quietly rewrite wouldn't be worth trusting. Add a comment to that day in History explaining what actually happened. Everyone in the family will see it, with your name on it.
Forgotten password
On the sign-in screen, type your email address in the field first, then tap Forgot password? — the reset link goes to that address. Check the spam folder if it doesn't appear; it's an automated message from a small app.
Leaving a family, or deleting your account
- To stop notifications on one phone — sign out. Nothing is deleted.
- To leave the family but keep your account — Profile → Your family → Leave Family.
- To delete your account — Profile → Delete Account. You'll be asked to type DELETE to confirm. It removes your profile, your phone number and your place in the family, and if you are the person who created the family, the family goes with it — every child, location, emergency contact, comment and the whole history. There is no export and no way to get it back. See the Privacy Policy for the detail.
Anything else
Feature requests, things that read wrong, bugs, or a question this page didn't answer — all welcome at support@daycareguardian.app.
See also the Privacy Policy, which lists exactly what the app stores and what it never touches, and the Terms of Use.