Why Custody Schedule Apps Don't Actually Solve the Problem

It's 11pm. You're staring at your phone, trying to figure out who has the kids for spring break.

Your custody agreement says one thing. Your calendar app says another. And that "co-parenting app" you downloaded six months ago? It's showing the regular schedule like spring break doesn't exist.

Sound familiar?

You're not bad at this. The tools are bad at this.

Why Custody Schedules Are Actually Complicated

Here's what nobody tells you when you're signing those divorce papers: a custody schedule isn't just "every other week."

It's every other week, except:

• Holidays that override the regular schedule (and alternate each year)
• School breaks with their own rules
• Birthdays that might go to a specific parent
• Summer schedules that completely change the pattern
• Age-based adjustments that kick in when kids hit certain milestones
• Makeup time when exchanges get disrupted

And here's the kicker: all of these rules interact with each other. What happens when Dad's holiday overlaps with Mom's regular weekend? What if spring break falls during an exchange day?

Your custody agreement handles this. It's probably 10+ pages of carefully worded rules, exceptions, and tie-breakers.

Your calendar app? It has no idea.

The Problem With Every "Solution" Out There

Let's talk about the tools you've probably tried.

Shared Calendars (Google Calendar, Apple Calendar)

You manually entered everything. Color-coded it. Shared it with your co-parent.

Then a holiday came, and you had to manually override that week. Then summer started, and you had to change the whole pattern. Then you forgot to update one event, and now you're in an argument about whose fault it is.

Shared calendars are great for tracking appointments. They're terrible for custody because you're doing all the work. The calendar doesn't know your rules - it just shows whatever you put in it.

Spreadsheets

Ah yes, the custody spreadsheet. Rows for every day. Columns for notes. Conditional formatting if you're fancy.

It works until it doesn't. One copy gets out of sync. Someone forgets to check it. And heaven forbid you need to answer "who has the kids on July 4th, 2026?" - enjoy scrolling.

Co-Parenting Apps (The Big Names)

Apps like Our Family Wizard have been around for years. Courts recommend them. Attorneys know them.

But here's the thing: they're built for communication, not scheduling.

Our Family Wizard is excellent if you need documented messaging with a high-conflict co-parent. The expense tracking is decent. But the scheduling? You still have to manually configure everything. There's no intelligence about holidays. No state-specific guidelines built in. No automatic alternating years.

You spend 30 minutes setting up a basic schedule, and it still doesn't handle Christmas correctly.

These apps let you track a schedule. They don't build one.

What "Solving" Actually Looks Like

Here's what we realized after living this problem ourselves:

The schedule logic already exists. It's in your custody agreement. It's in your state's parenting time guidelines. Every rule, every exception, every tie-breaker - it's all documented.

The problem is that no app has bothered to encode it.

So we built one that does.

Introducing Parenting Time Planner

We started with Indiana because that's where we are. Indiana has detailed Parenting Time Guidelines that cover standard schedules, holidays, school breaks, and all the edge cases.

Parenting Time Planner knows these rules. You tell us your situation - when you separated, who has primary custody, your kids' ages and school schedule - and we generate your complete custody calendar automatically.

Not just the regular weeks. Everything:

• Holidays that alternate years (Thanksgiving with Dad in odd years, Mom in even years)
• Spring break and fall break rules
• Summer extended parenting time
• Birthday rules
• Christmas Eve vs. Christmas Day schedules
• All of it, built into your calendar from day one

But Wait - I'm Not in Indiana

We hear you. And we're coming for you.

Custody is complicated everywhere - not just Indiana. Whether you're in Texas or Vermont, California or Maine, Florida or North Dakota, you're dealing with the same chaos: spreadsheets that don't sync, calendars that ignore holidays, and apps that make you do all the thinking.

All 50 states. That's the goal.

Here's what makes this possible: we're building a universal rules engine. Instead of hardcoding each state one-by-one (which would take years), our engine is designed to rapidly deploy new states and even custom custody arrangements.

What does that mean for you?

• Your state has official parenting time guidelines? We can encode them.
• Your custody agreement is completely custom? We can handle that too.
• You're outside the US? We're watching international demand closely.

Once our universal engine launches in early 2026, adding new states won't take months - it'll take days. And which states come first? That depends on you.

Help Us Build What Should Have Existed Years Ago

Here's the truth: we're a small team. We built this because we needed it ourselves. We launched in Indiana because we had to start somewhere.

But the vision is bigger. Every co-parent deserves a tool that actually understands custody - not another calendar app that makes you do all the thinking.

If you're in Indiana: we're live. Try it. Give us feedback. Tell us what we got wrong. We're listening.

If you're anywhere else: join the waitlist. Tell us your state. And when we expand, you'll be ready.

Either way, you don't have to figure this out alone anymore.

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Still doing the mental math every time a holiday comes up? Yeah, we were too. That's why we built this.