Easy Google Sheets Custody Calendar with Specific Dates

It wasn’t long after my divorce that I realized that I needed a visual calendar to better plan future events when I had my kids with me.

This realization took me down a couple rabbit holes to be honest.

One rabbit hole involved downloading multiple apps on the app store that either had annual costs associated with it or wasting time with other calendar apps that weren’t built for this type of scheduling.

This Google Sheet is free and the link is at the bottom of the post. 

Custody Calendar App Alternatives

I tried downloading monthly calendars from google images.  Well that lasted a couple months but what a pain.  I mean I liked being able to write down over the dates but the calendar quickly became cluttered and hard to read.  Ideally I was wishing certain dates could be highlighted to better visualize the dates I had my kids.

AND… if dates changes, I had to print out a whole new calendar and start from scratch.  NOT FUN!

Then I tried downloading an annual calendar on a single sheet of paper.  That wasn’t ideal either.  All the dates were so small and there wasn’t enough room to make any notes for specific days.

Solution for Any Custody Schedule

I liked the idea of using Google Sheets because it would be easy to share the calendar.  I have parents and siblings who want to make plans when I have my kids and they have no idea which days the kids are with me.  So I chose to find a solution with Google Sheets!

I started with several Google Searches which then lead me to YouTube…I even tried ChatGPT and Gemini. I quickly learned that I was going to need to combine a couple different concepts together in order to achieve my end result.

I found this YouTube video which is where I started.  SpreadsheetLife did a fantastic job of walking you through the basics of setting up a calendar in Google Sheets.  You can click here to open a new tab to watch the YouTube video.

Once I had the calendar created, I updated some of the conditional formatting to make it my own.  I encourage you to do the same.  It’s easy to do as shown in the video.

The next step for me was to highlight specific dates that I had my kids.  So this is where ChatGPT came in.  Just because it’s AI, doesn’t mean its fast or simple FYI!   After a few hours of tweaks, I was able to generate the custom formula required to the conditional formatting to highlight specific dates provided.  I added these dates lower on the sheet to prevent cluttering the calendar view.

Google Sheets Dynamic Calendar with Specific Dates Highlighted

I finally got the calendar working and it highlights dates that are provided lower on the sheet.

I can easily click the month dropdown to choose any month of the year or change the year to see that month’s custody schedule (as long as the dates are listed below).

I really hope this helps other divorced parents!

I’m not charging anything for this calendar.  Click on the button below to view the calendar in all its glory 🙂

I really enjoy coffee so if this helps you in any way, please consider sending me a thank you with the PayPal button.