ChildFriendly Pro

Two empty Tuesday/Thursday slots and a family who only wants Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Most systems call that a no.

It isn't. It's a scheduling problem that a human could solve given an hour and a whiteboard — which is exactly why it never gets solved, because nobody has the hour.

Capacity forecasting matches part-week applications against the partial slots you already have open. Two vacancies filled by one application. 100% occupancy on a room you'd written off as awkward.

The waitlist isn't short. The matching is what's slow.

Read the blog → childfriendlypro.com/blog

$249 a month.

That was the moment. Not a strategy session — an invoice. We were paying for childcare software that put parent messaging, multi-site reporting and custom forms behind upgrades, on top of a license that went up every year regardless.

So we stopped paying for it and built our own. Every feature, from day one, for $0 a month. Not because we're generous, but because the software was never meant to be the business. It was meant to run our centers.

New on the blog: the full story, including the parts that didn't work first time.

https://childfriendlypro.com/blog/admin-operators/the-hidden-cost-of-childcare-software-are-you-paying-more-than-you-need-to/

Whether you’re looking to fill a few remaining spaces or build a waitlist for the future, these practical marketing tips for daycares can help your center stand out and attract more families. https://childfriendlypro.com/blog/childcare/7-essential-daycare-marketing-tips-for-success/

$0 a month. Not a trial. Not a starter plan. Not the tier that stops working the moment you grow.

We know how that sounds, so here's the plain version. Attendance, billing and PAD, parent communication, reporting — the full platform, from day one, with no monthly license attached to it. No per-seat maths. No feature you discover is locked when you finally need it. No annual increase for software that does the same thing it did last year.

We can do this because we didn't build ChildFriendly to sell software. We built it to run our own centers, and it still does. The economics work differently when the product isn't the business model.

If you're budgeting for 2027 right now, this is the line item you can delete.

See pricing → childfriendlypro.com/pricing

The $15/day flat fee is simple for families. It is not simple for the office.

Every month the Affordability Grant reduction, the parent portion and the out-of-school-care subsidy have to reconcile exactly — for every child, in every room, against your provincial allocation. Most centers do that in a spreadsheet one person knows how to rebuild. That isn't a system. It's a single point of failure with a payroll number.

ChildFriendly was built running Alberta centers, so this is the part it handles by default: grant reductions applied automatically, the parent portion split out and scheduled to PAD, majority-ratio tracking running in the background, ECE wage top-up claims where they belong. Variance at month-end: zero, or flagged so you can see exactly where it went.

See it for Alberta → childfriendlypro.com/alberta

Learning letters doesn’t have to feel like learning!
Young children learn best through play, exploration, and hands-on experiences. From letter hunts to sensory activities, there are so many fun ways to build early literacy skills naturally.
Our latest blog shares 15 play-based letter recognition activities for toddlers and preschoolers that make learning engaging, meaningful, and fun!
https://childfriendlypro.com/blog/child-development/how-to-teach-letter-recognition-in-early-childhood-15-play-based-activities-for-toddlers-and-preschoolers/

Who helps us, and where do we fit? 🏘️
Our next free ChildFriendly Learning Lab is all about Community Helpers & Belonging — and it's a week away.

Join Krystal Churcher for an hour of simple, hands-on ideas you can actually bring into your classroom: a Community Helper Discovery Station, My Community Collage, and a Community Construction Challenge. Together they support language development, social awareness, and every child's sense of belonging.

📅 September 10th
🕢 7:30 – 8:30 PM MT
💻 Online + free

Attend live and you'll get your official workshop completion certificate, plus follow-up resources sent straight to your inbox.

Directors — share this with your ECE team. It's a no-cost way to support their professional development.

Sign up here: https://childfriendlypro.com/learning-lab

Field trips are where learning really comes to life! From farms and fire stations to libraries and nature trails, daycare field trips create unforgettable learning experiences. They also take plenty of planning.
Our latest blog shares a simple daycare field trip checklist to help you plan for safety, supervision, permissions, headcounts, and everything in between.
https://childfriendlypro.com/blog/classroom-ece/how-to-plan-a-safe-and-successful-daycare-field-trip-a-complete-checklist/

Tomorrow: the compliance session.

Every operator has a version of the same story — the binder rebuilt the night before an inspection, the policy everyone follows a little differently.

Protecting Your Childcare Business: Risk, Compliance & Regulatory Best Practices
📅 Tomorrow, Wed Sept 2 · 🕦 11:30 AM–12:30 PM MT · 🎟️ Free

Bring the situation you're not sure you handled right. That's the part worth an hour.

Register → childfriendlypro.com/lunch-and-learn

Most compliance problems don't start as compliance problems.

They start as an unfinished form, a policy two staff apply two different ways, an incident written up from memory three days later. It works until the day someone examines it.

Lunch & Learn: Protecting Your Childcare Business
Risk, Compliance & Regulatory Best Practices
📅 Wed, September 2 · 🕦 11:30 AM–12:30 PM MT · 🎟️ Free

One hour on where childcare programs are most exposed — the gaps to catch early, documentation that protects you, handling incidents and complaints, keeping staff consistent on policy, and the point where an operational issue becomes a liability risk.

Bring your questions.

Save your spot → childfriendlypro.com/lunch-and-learn