How to share a schedule with a babysitter without an app

5 October 2026

You know the whole week. The sitter needs three things out of it: which days, what time, and what has changed since yesterday. The trouble is rarely that the schedule is secret. It is that it lives in your head, your own calendar and four message threads.

This page goes through the ways people actually do this, what each one is good for, and where each one stops working.

What the other person actually needs

• Only their part. A sitter does not need your dentist appointment, and you may not want to show it.
• In a place they already look. Almost everyone has a calendar on their phone. Almost nobody wants another app for one family.
• Changes that arrive on their own. Practice moved to Thursday. If that depends on you remembering to send a message, sooner or later it gets missed.
• A reminder on the day. A schedule someone has to remember to open is a schedule that gets forgotten.

Five ways to do it

1. Text messages or a group chat

Fine for a one-off: "Can you get Emma at 3:30 on Friday?" It stops working when things repeat or change. The current plan ends up scattered through a long thread, and nothing reminds anyone on the day.

2. A printed schedule or a whiteboard at home

Good for someone who works in your home, and for the things that never change. It cannot be updated when you are out, and it is no help to a grandparent setting off from their own house.

3. Calendar invitations

You create the event in your own calendar and add the other person as a guest. It lands in their calendar with a reminder, and changes follow it. This works well for a few events. For a weekly routine it means inviting someone to every event one at a time, and they are usually notified about each invitation and each change.

4. Sharing your family calendar

You give the other person access to the calendar you already keep. It is the least work for you. The costs land on their side: sharing with one specific person generally needs them to have an account with the same provider (a Google account for Google Calendar, an Apple account for iCloud), and they see the whole calendar, not their part. A second calendar just for the sitter fixes that, and then you are keeping two calendars in step by hand.

5. A calendar they subscribe to once

You keep the schedule in one place and each person gets a private link. They open it once and add it to the calendar already on their phone. From then on, whatever you add or change shows up there by itself. This is the approach Turnabee takes. It is what this site sells, so read the limits further down as well as the benefits.

Which one to pick

Your situation	What usually fits
One sitter, now and then	A text message or a calendar invitation
Someone in your home on a fixed routine	A printed schedule, plus messages for changes
One regular sitter, a few events a week	Calendar invitations
Several people (a sitter, grandparents, a neighbour who drives on Tuesdays), each with different things to do, and a plan that keeps changing	A subscribed calendar per person

How it works in Turnabee

1. Add the people. Each one gets a link of their own.
2. Add the things to do and say who each one is for. For every item you choose who sees it: everyone, only the person doing it, or the people you pick.
3. Send each person their link. They open it, choose Apple Calendar or Google Calendar, and that is the whole setup. No account, no password, no app.

After that you only touch your own side. If pickup moves to 4:00 you change it once, and it changes in their calendar. From the event they can mark it done, so you can see it happened without having to ask.

Try it as the person on the receiving end → No sign-up. It puts a sample schedule in your own calendar, so you see what a sitter would see.

What it does not do

• It is not instant on Apple Calendar. Apple's calendar app fetches subscribed calendars on its own schedule, so a change can take a while to appear. For something in the next hour, send a message as well. (Google Calendar is quicker, because there we write straight into the person's calendar.)
• iPhone needs one extra step for reminders. When subscribing, a switch called Remove Alerts is on by default. The setup page shows where it is. More about that switch.
• It goes one way. The other person cannot add things to your schedule. If two of you plan together as equals, a shared family calendar is the better tool.
• The free plan covers three people in one group. See pricing.

More guides

• Coordinating a parent's care with siblings: who does what, and when
• Subscribed calendar with no alerts on iPhone: the cause and the fix

All guides →