From the first screen to the first morning.

The steps

1. Say what this device is

   The first screens introduce the app, then ask what this device is. Pick the role you chose above; it can be changed any time under Settings › This device › Role.

   A shared device shows the Night Stand as its home screen and rings for every kid in the herd. Good for a nightstand iPad that two kids share a room with.

   A kid's bedside device rings only for that kid. Joined by pairing code, it starts as this role on its own. The kid gets their area with a tap: their alarms, their clock's look, A livelier Moo, and nothing else.

   Your phone opens on the Barn. Give it a person under Settings › Role if you want your own alarms on it; otherwise it rings for nobody and only watches.

2. Allow alarms

   iOS asks whether Moo Dreams may schedule alarms. Say yes: without it nothing can ring, and the clock and the Barn will keep saying so until you do. A shared device and a parent's phone also ask for notifications, for the bedtime reminder, the "message is waiting" notice and, on your phone, the morning banners.

   A kid's device is not asked for notifications unless you turn on the bedtime reminder there; its alarms need no notification permission at all.

3. Add your kid

   A name, a birthday and a colour. The birthday sets the age band: little ones get playful words and messages read aloud, teens get calm copy and a bedtime note that stays theirs. The colour is their clock, their alarm on the Lock Screen and their row in the Barn.

   • Grown-ups belong in the herd too: Add someone › A grown-up gives a parent their own alarms and bedtime, in plain words.
   • Free covers one kid. The Whole Herd adds everyone else.

4. Set the first alarm

   Add an alarm on the kid's page. It tells one ring in order, top to bottom:

   • Time and days. School days, weekends, every day, or your own set. An odd minute (6:47) is harder to sleep through than a round one.
   • Wake-up sound. An alarm sound, free. With The Whole Herd, a recording of yours or a song from your Apple Music library rings instead, with the alarm sound beneath it as the backup.
   • Wake-up style. Gentle, Standard, or Quiet start for a shared room, all free. Heavy sleeper, which grows louder, buzzes every second and switches to an energetic sound, comes with The Whole Herd.
   • Before the ring. A sunrise of 5 to 30 minutes, if you want one, and lights from your Home app that come up with it.
   • To finish. The challenge and its difficulty. Hold to wake is the default; Math medium × 5 is the heavy-sleeper classic.
   • Snooze. None, a few on their terms, or Up by a time.
   • After the challenge. Check back, for the kid who climbs back in.

   Set it on your phone and, with family sync, the bedside device arms it within seconds. Without sync, set alarms on the device that will ring them.

5. Leave a message

   Messages › Add. Write a line and pick who it is for and when it plays; the app reads it aloud in the voice you choose. Record one instead, or ask Grandma to, with The Whole Herd. The positive pack and the fun pack are already on; the faith pack waits for you to turn it on.

   • To hear written messages in your own voice, make a Personal Voice under iOS Settings › Accessibility and allow Moo Dreams to use it when asked.
   • Keep lines short. The kid is standing in a dark room with one thumb on the screen.

6. Set wind-down

   Settings › Bedtime. At that time the clock dims to its night brightness, Moo walks off to bed, and the check-in asks how the kid feels. Set each kid's sleep-sound mix from their page in the Barn, and add a few "on their mind" words if you like; the check-in offers them before "Nothing much".

   On a shared device the bedtime reminder is on by default, so the question arrives as a notification even when the app is closed.

7. Make the nightstand safe

   • The charger. The clock keeps the screen on all night on purpose, and the sky, the shooting stars and Moo over the moon only appear while charging.
   • Guided Access (iOS Settings › Accessibility) keeps a kid inside the app on a shared iPad; Screen Time blocks deleting apps and changing settings.
   • Automatic updates are for the daytime: after a restart a device must be unlocked once before any alarm can ring. That is iOS.
   • Face ID off on a device whose enrolled face is the kid's; the parent gate falls back to the PIN.
   • The alarm volume. On a locked device the alarm rings at iOS's alarm volume (Settings › Sounds). On the Night Stand the app turns the media volume up itself when it rings.

8. Pair the second device (The Whole Herd)

   Same Apple Account: turn on Settings › Family sync on both. Another account: on your phone, Settings › Family sync › Show the pairing code, and scan it with the new device during its first screens, or send the invitation link. From then on anything saved anywhere reaches everywhere, and your phone hears "Ava is up".

   Turn on Settings › Mornings on this phone › Not up yet, and your phone says so when a bedside device rang and nothing came back.

9. The first morning

   Open the alarm and tap Rehearse this alarm at the bottom: the whole morning plays right away, with a Rehearsal tag and nothing written down. For the real thing, set an alarm two minutes out and stay on the clock. A few seconds before the time the app takes the ring over, the screen fills with the kid's colour, the sound ramps, and the challenge waits. Finish it, hear the message, tap Start the day. Then press and hold the clock, enter your PIN, and look at Today: there is the morning, with the minutes it took.

   Lock the device and set another alarm: that one rings on the Lock Screen as iOS's own, with Wake up and Stop. Stop is a snooze. Wake up brings the morning back.