DAYCARE DAILY REPORT TEMPLATE
Free daycare daily report template — the daily sheet that goes home in the cubby, ready to print
Bottles, meals and snacks with the time and how much, naps down and up, diapers and potty with the time, the day's mood and play as check boxes, what we did, what to bring tomorrow and a note for the family — for infants, toddlers and preschoolers on one sheet. Free in Word and PDF, with the what-to-pack list for every new family.
Word and PDF · Free · No email, no sign-up
The short answer
A daycare daily report is the sheet that tells a parent how the day went when the child can't: every bottle, meal and snack with the time and how much was actually taken, every nap down and up, every diaper change or potty try with the time, the mood, what they did, what's running low, and a note about the bump, the bite, the cough or the first step — written by the caregiver and sent home at pickup. For infants it's a licensing rule in the states we checked — Texas and Ohio; for toddlers and preschoolers it's the same sheet with fewer lines filled in, and it's the reason a parent trusts the room.
If you run a daycare — a center or a home — print the sheet, put your name on the Word file and keep a stack by each room's door. The report that goes home every day, with the amounts honest and the note written at the time, is the one parents read in the car and the one a licensing visit asks to see. The what-to-pack list is the other half of the first week: hand it out at the tour and the new family arrives on day one with the labeled bottles, the two changes of clothes and the comfort item, and without the medicine in the bag.
Below: the printable daily report, the what-to-pack list, what changes between the infant, toddler and preschool versions, every block explained, the two states' rules, and how the same list goes on a daycare's website.
FREE DAILY REPORT · WORD AND PDF
The daycare daily report, ready to print
The child, the date, the room, the drop-off and pickup times and the caregiver at the top; two check-box blocks — today I…, and please bring; then write-in lines for bottles, meals and snacks with the time and the amount, naps down and up, diapers and potty with the time, what we did today, and a note for the family. Letter size, portrait, one sheet per child per day. Free, no email address, no sign-up.
Daily report · one per child per day
| [Your daycare] | |
| Daily Report | |
| How today went — bottles and meals, naps, diapers and potty, mood and play — one sheet, home in the cubby | |
| Child: ______________________________ Date: ____________ Room: ______________ | |
| Dropped off at: ________ by: ________________ Picked up at: ________ by: ________________ | |
| Caregiver: ______________________________ | |
| Today I… | |
| ☐ | Ate well |
| ☐ | Drank well |
| ☐ | Napped well |
| ☐ | Played outside |
| ☐ | Had tummy time or floor play |
| ☐ | Did art, music or a story |
| ☐ | Was happy most of the day |
| ☐ | Was fussy or tired — see the note below |
| Please bring | |
| ☐ | Diapers |
| ☐ | Wipes |
| ☐ | A change of clothes |
| ☐ | Bottles, formula or breast milk |
| ☐ | Lunch or snacks (if you send them) |
| ☐ | Something else — see the note below |
| Bottles, meals and snacks | |
| Time: ________ What: ______________________________ How much: ______________ | |
| Time: ________ What: ______________________________ How much: ______________ | |
| Time: ________ What: ______________________________ How much: ______________ | |
| Time: ________ What: ______________________________ How much: ______________ | |
| Write the amount the child actually took, not what was offered — half a bottle is the line a parent plans the evening around. | |
| Naps | |
| Down: ________ Up: ________ Down: ________ Up: ________ Down: ________ Up: ________ | |
| Diapers and potty | |
| Time: ______ wet · BM · dry Time: ______ wet · BM · dry Time: ______ wet · BM · dry | |
| Time: ______ wet · BM · dry Time: ______ wet · BM · dry Potty tries: ______ Successes: ______ | |
| What we did today | |
| __________________________________________________________________________ | |
| __________________________________________________________________________ | |
| A note for the family | |
| __________________________________________________________________________ | |
| __________________________________________________________________________ | |
| A bump, a bite, a cough, a new word, a first step: write it here with the time, and tell the family at pickup as well. Anything that needs a call gets the call first. | |
| One sheet per child per day. The infant lines — the times and amounts, the naps, the diapers, the mood and the activities — are the ones Texas and Ohio ask a center to send home each day; the preschool version uses the meals, the nap, the potty line and the activities and leaves the rest blank. | |
| [Your daycare] · [Your phone] · [Your website] | |
The Word file is a standard .docx — put your daycare's name and phone in the brackets, add your logo, change the check-box lines to match your rooms (a preschool room drops the tummy-time line and keeps the potty line), and save it as your master copy. The PDF prints as-is; print a stack per room. Print at “Actual size”, not “Fit to page”.
THE WHAT-TO-PACK LIST
The what-to-pack list — what a new family brings, and what stays home
Six blocks — on the first day; every day for infants and toddlers; every day for preschoolers; naps; weather; stays home — with a check box on every line, the child, the room, the start date and the labeling instruction at the top, and a notes block for your own lines at the foot. Handed out at the tour; the same list goes on the website.
Checklist · one per new family
| [Your daycare] | |
| What to Pack for Daycare | |
| What to bring on the first day, what to bring every day, what stays here, and what stays home | |
| Child: ______________________________ Room: ______________ Start date: ____________ | |
| Label everything with: ______________________________ Cubby or hook: ______________ | |
| On the first day | |
| ☐ | The start paperwork we gave you at the tour, filled in |
| ☐ | Two full changes of clothes, labeled, in a zip bag — including socks |
| ☐ | A family photo for the cubby or the wall |
| ☐ | The comfort item: the blanket, the lovey, the pacifier — labeled, and one we can keep here |
| ☐ | Diaper cream or ointment in its original tube, labeled, if your child uses one |
| Every day — infants and toddlers | |
| ☐ | Bottles for the day, labeled with the name and the date, prepared or with formula measured out |
| ☐ | Breast milk labeled with the name, the date and the time it was expressed |
| ☐ | Diapers for the day plus extras, or a pack to keep here |
| ☐ | Wipes — a pack to keep here |
| ☐ | Baby food, cereal or snacks if you send them, labeled |
| ☐ | The sippy cup or the water bottle, labeled |
| Every day — preschoolers | |
| ☐ | Lunch and snacks in a labeled bag, if you send them — with an ice pack for anything cold |
| ☐ | A water bottle, labeled and filled |
| ☐ | A backpack big enough for the daily report, the art and the wet clothes |
| ☐ | Underwear and a change of clothes in the backpack while potty training |
| Naps | |
| ☐ | A crib sheet or a nap mat cover, labeled — sent home to wash on Fridays |
| ☐ | A small blanket, labeled |
| ☐ | The nap-time comfort item, if there is one |
| Weather | |
| ☐ | A coat, a hat and mittens in winter — we go outside most days |
| ☐ | Rain boots and a rain jacket, labeled, left here in the wet months |
| ☐ | A sun hat and a swimsuit, towel and water shoes on water-play days |
| ☐ | Sturdy shoes that stay on — no flip-flops, no slip-on crocs |
| Stays home | |
| ☐ | Toys from home, except the comfort item |
| ☐ | Jewelry, hair beads and anything small enough to swallow |
| ☐ | Food with nuts, and anything on the room's allergy list on the door |
| ☐ | Anything you'd mind losing |
| Our notes for your family | |
| __________________________________________________________________________ | |
| __________________________________________________________________________ | |
| Medicine, sunscreen and bug spray need their own paperwork from us before we can use them — ask us for it, and don't put them in the bag. | |
| Label everything: a name on the tag, the bottle, the cup, the shoes and the blanket. Twenty families, twenty blue water bottles. A daycare hands this list out at the tour and puts the same list on its website. | |
| [Your daycare] · [Your phone] · [Your website] | |
The last line of the notes block is the one that saves a morning: medicine, sunscreen and bug spray need their own paperwork from the daycare before they can be used, so they stay out of the bag until that's done.
Build the website
Start your daycare website now
Add your business name and your town to the sentence, and Zarla builds the site, with a page for each service and town you list. You edit it in chat and publish when you're ready.
Already have a website? Bring it across →Zarla keeps your old page addresses where it can and redirects the ones that change, helping you keep the Google standing you've built.
BY AGE
Infant, toddler and preschool: what the daily report covers
One sheet, three rooms. The infant lines are the ones Texas and Ohio ask for; the older rooms fill in less and write more.
| Block | Infants | Toddlers | Preschool |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bottles, meals and snacks | Every bottle with the time and the ounces taken; solids once they start | Meals and snacks with how much — all, most, some, none | Meals and snacks with how much; what they wouldn't try |
| Naps | Every sleep, down and up — the line a parent plans the night around | The one nap, down and up | Rest time: slept, rested or didn't |
| Diapers and potty | Every change with the time: wet, BM or dry | Changes with the time, plus potty tries and successes | Potty: accidents, if any; otherwise blank |
| Today I… | Tummy time, floor play, outside, mood | Outside, art or story, mood | Outside, art, music or story, mood, a friend they played with |
| What we did today | A sentence: the song, the new texture, the first roll | A sentence or two: the activity and who they played with | What they learned, built, drew or read |
| Please bring | Diapers, wipes, bottles, formula or breast milk, clothes | Diapers or pull-ups, wipes, clothes, a cup | A change of clothes, a water bottle, the nap sheet on Monday |
| A note for the family | The bump, the bite, the cough, the new tooth — with the time | The bite, the fall, the new word | The friend, the frustration, the thing they're proud of |
STEP BY STEP
How to run daily reports in a daycare
For the center or the home daycare: ten minutes to set up once, then one sheet per child per day, written as the day happens.
Make it yours
Open the Word file, put your daycare's name and phone in the brackets, add your logo, and change the check-box lines per room. Save one master per room.
A stack by every room's door
One sheet per child, started at drop-off with the time and who brought them. The sheet lives on the clipboard by the changing table, not in the office.
Write it as it happens
The bottle when it's finished, the diaper when it's changed, the nap when they go down and when they wake. A sheet filled in at four o'clock from memory has the wrong amounts.
Write the note at the time
A bump, a bite, a cough, a first step: the line with the time, and the family told at pickup as well. Anything that needs a call gets the call first, then the line.
Home in the cubby, copy in the file
The sheet goes home at pickup; a photo or a copy goes in the child's file. A licensing visit will ask to see them, and so will a parent a week later.
Put the pack list online
A “your first day” page with the what-to-pack list is what a new family reads the week before they start. The list is that page, already written.
Every block on the daily report, explained
The header is what makes it a record. The child and the date, the room, who dropped off and when, who picked up and when, and the caregiver who wrote it. The pickup line is written at the door; it's the line that answers “who took her home on Tuesday?”
Bottles, meals and snacks are times and amounts, and the amount is what was taken. Half a four-ounce bottle is a line a parent plans the evening around; “ate well” isn't. For solids and preschool meals the amount is all, most, some or none, and the thing they wouldn't try is worth a word.
Naps are down and up, every time. For an infant that's every sleep, which is why the line has room for three; for a toddler it's the one nap; for a preschooler it's whether they slept, rested or didn't. The nap line is the one most often read in the car.
Diapers and potty are the time and the result. Wet, BM or dry, with the time, every change; potty tries and successes once training starts, and accidents for the older rooms. It's the block that catches the day something was off, and it's the block the infant rules name.
Today I… and please bring are the check boxes. The first is the day's shape at a glance — ate, drank, napped, outside, tummy time, art or a story, happy, fussy; the second is what's running low in the cubby. Both are faster to check than to write, and a parent reads them first.
What we did today is a sentence, not a schedule. The song, the new texture, the first roll; the block tower and who built it; what they drew. One line a parent can ask about at dinner.
A note for the family is the block that earns the trust. The bump, the bite, the cough, the new tooth, the first step, the hard goodbye — with the time, told at pickup as well as written. The sheet's own small print says it: anything that needs a call gets the call first. Nothing on the sheet asks the family to agree to anything; it's a record of the day, not a form.
The what-to-pack list is the first week's other half. What comes on the first day, what comes every day for each age, what stays here for naps and weather, and what stays home — with the labeling line at the top, because twenty families have twenty blue water bottles. Its last note is the important one: medicine, sunscreen and bug spray need the daycare's own paperwork before they can be used, so they stay out of the bag.
For daycares: the rules behind the infant sheet
In the US, the daily report is a licensing rule for infants in the states we checked, and the rules say what's on it. Texas's minimum standards for child-care centers (§746.2431) require a daily written or electronic report to the infant's parent when or by the time the infant is picked up, containing the times the infant slept, the times and amount of food consumed, the times of diaper changes, the infant's general mood for the day and a brief summary of the activities — which is the sheet above, block for block; for toddlers (§746.2509) Texas asks no written daily report, only a plan for personal contact with parents. Ohio's infant care rule (5101:2-12-23) asks a center to maintain a daily written record for each infant, provided to the parent or the person picking up on a daily basis, with the food intake, the sleeping patterns, the times and results of diaper changes and information about daily activities. Nothing on these two sheets is written as terms or as an enrollment, medication or incident form — those are your state's forms, and the pack list tells families to ask you for them. Child-care rules differ by state, by the type of program and by country, so check your own licensing rules before you promise a family anything about the paperwork.
Put the pack list on your website, and invoice tuition from the same place
The parent who searches for a daycare daily report is usually a provider about to open a room, and the parent who searches for a daycare packing list is a family about to start. Most daycare websites say “infants, toddlers and preschool, 6:30 to 6” and leave it there; the ones that fill the spot show the new family what the first day looks like — the daily sheet that comes home, the list of what to bring — with the daycare's name on it. The two sheets on this page are that page, already written.
If you build your daycare website with Zarla, add your daycare's name and your town to the sentence above, and Zarla builds the site, with a page for each service and town you list. Then tell the editor “add a your-first-day section with the lines on my what-to-pack list” and the list goes on the site, in a section you can edit any time.
Tuition is invoiced from the same dashboard, with the child's name and the period on it; the daycare invoice template shows what the invoice should carry — tuition per child by the week or the month, late pickup and extra days on their own lines, and, in the US, the provider tax ID parents need for the child and dependent care credit.
Want to see a finished site first? Browse daycare website templates, see how Zarla builds daycare websites, look at daycare website designs and what agencies charge for them, or browse daycare website examples.
Starting or pricing the daycare?
How to start a daycare covers home versus center, the state license and the first enrolled family; how to become a daycare provider covers the training and the checks state by state; what to charge for daycare has the 2026 rates by age and by state with a calculator; the daycare business plan puts the numbers together; and the daycare invoice template bills the tuition.
Daycare daily reports: common questions
Yes. The daily report and the what-to-pack list on this page download free as a Word document and a PDF, with no email address and no sign-up. Edit the Word files for your rooms, or print the PDFs and fill them in by hand on the clipboard.
The child, the date, the room, the drop-off and pickup times and who brought and collected them; every bottle, meal and snack with the time and how much was taken; every nap down and up; every diaper change or potty try with the time and the result; the day's mood and play as check boxes; what they did; what to bring tomorrow; and a note for the family about anything out of the ordinary, with the time. That's the sheet on this page, block by block.
In the states we checked, yes. Texas requires a daily written or electronic report to the infant's parent by pickup time, with the times the infant slept, the times and amount of food consumed, the times of diaper changes, the general mood and a brief summary of the activities; Ohio requires a daily written record for each infant, provided to the parent or the person picking up, with the food intake, the sleeping patterns, the times and results of diaper changes and the daily activities. Child-care rules differ by state and by the type of program, so check your own licensing rules.
Texas asks no written daily report for toddlers — only a plan for personal contact with parents — and many rooms send one anyway because parents want it. The same sheet works: the toddler room fills in meals, the one nap, the diaper or potty line and the check boxes; the preschool room fills in meals, rest time, the potty line if there was an accident, what they learned and the note. The by-age table on this page lays it out.
Yes — the infant room uses every line: each bottle with the time and the ounces taken, each sleep down and up (the naps line has room for three), each diaper with the time and the result, tummy time and floor play in the check boxes, and the note. Those are the lines the Texas and Ohio rules name.
Anything the parent would want to hear in the car: a bump or a bite with the time, a cough that started after lunch, a new tooth, a first step, a hard goodbye that turned into a good morning. Written at the time, told at pickup as well, and anything that needs a call gets the call first. The note is a record of the day; nothing on the sheet asks the family to agree to anything.
No. In the US, medicine and injuries have their own forms under your state's licensing rules, and the daily report is neither: it carries no medicine line, and the what-to-pack list tells families to ask you for the medicine paperwork rather than putting medicine in the bag. The daily report is the plain record of the day that goes home. Child-care rules differ by state and by the type of program, so check your own licensing rules for the forms they ask for.
On the first day: the start paperwork filled in, two labeled changes of clothes including socks, a family photo for the cubby, the comfort item, and diaper cream in its tube if they use one. Every day for an infant or toddler: labeled bottles or breast milk with the name, the date and the time, diapers and wipes or a pack to keep, food if they send it, the cup. Every day for a preschooler: lunch and snacks with an ice pack if they send them, a water bottle, a backpack, and spare underwear while training. Plus the nap sheet and blanket, the weather gear, and nothing from the stays-home list. That's the second sheet on this page.
Yes — that's what the Word file is for. Put your daycare's name, phone and website in the brackets, add your logo, change the check-box lines per room (drop tummy time for the preschoolers, add a line you track), and save a master per room. The PDF is the same sheet for printing as-is, a stack per room.
It should — as a your-first-day page. A family that's booked a start date wants to know what to bring, and the list already answers it line by line. If you build your site with Zarla, tell the editor to add a your-first-day section with those lines — it's a section you can edit any time your list changes — and invoice tuition from the same place.
Sources
Read November 3, 2026.
- Texas Health and Human Services — Minimum Standards for Child-Care Centers (26 TAC Chapter 746), revised December 2025 — §746.2431: a center must provide a daily written or electronic report to the infant's parent when or by the time the infant is picked up, with the times the infant slept, the times and amount of food consumed, the times of diaper changes, the infant's general mood for the day and a brief summary of the activities; §746.2509: no written daily report is required for a toddler, but the center must have a plan for personal contact with parents
- Ohio Administrative Code 5101:2-12-23 — Infant care (Cornell LII), effective October 29, 2021 — a center must maintain a daily written record for each infant that is provided to the infant's parent or the person picking up the infant on a daily basis, with the food intake, the sleeping patterns, the times and results of diaper changes and information about daily activities
Put the what-to-pack list on the website that books the tour
Add your daycare's name and your town, and Zarla builds the site from that one line — with a page for each service you list and an inquiry form for tours, ready to edit in chat.
Already have a website? Bring it across →Zarla keeps your old page addresses where it can and redirects the ones that change, helping you keep the Google standing you've built.