Never miss a jab: the new Circle baby calendar and the NHS checks worth knowing

29 August 2026·6 min read·Product

A family sharing the care of their baby at home

Appointments are the quiet admin of the first year. A red book, a text from the surgery, a letter about the six-week check, a jab date you agreed on the phone while holding a feeding baby. Nothing about that system is designed for someone who slept in ninety-minute blocks.

So we built a calendar into Circle Baby Care. It is live now for everyone, on the same plan, at /calendar in the app.

A calendar you can actually read one-handed

Open it and you see a month grid — the days with something on them are marked, and tapping a day shows what is booked. Nothing is buried behind menus.

Adding an appointment takes about fifteen seconds:

What it is — GP check, vaccination, health visitor, midwife, scan, or mum's own appointment (postnatal check, physio, GP). Yours matter too.
When — pick a time in 15-minute steps, or just type it if the letter says 09:40.
How long, so you know whether it collides with a nap.
Where — the surgery, the clinic, the hospital entrance you always forget.
Who is going — useful when a grandparent is doing the drop-off.
A colour and notes — "bring the red book", "second dose", "ask about reflux".

The reminder that matters

By default Circle sends a push notification 30 minutes before. You can change it to 15 minutes, an hour, two hours, a day ahead, or turn it off entirely. A background job checks every few minutes, so the nudge lands whether or not the app is open.

One practical note for iPhone users: notifications only work once Circle is installed to your home screen. Open the site in Safari, tap Share, then *Add to Home Screen*. On Android, Chrome offers *Install app* from the menu. It takes one tap and it is free — there is no app store step.

Everyone in your circle sees it

This is the part that saves the arguments. Add the 12-week jabs once and your partner, your mum and your childminder all see the same entry, with the same address and the same time. No forwarded texts, no "I thought you booked it".

Expected appointments — prompts, not bookings

Below the calendar there is a section called Expected appointments. Based on your baby's date of birth, it lists the checks that are typically due around now in the UK — the newborn physical examination, the blood spot (heel prick) test, the newborn hearing screen, the health visitor's new birth visit, the 6–8 week GP check, the 8, 12 and 16-week vaccinations, the 1-year jabs and reviews, and the pre-school booster.

We want to be very clear about what this is: these are suggestions, not bookings. Circle cannot see your GP's system. Nothing in that list has been arranged for you, and the real dates vary by area, by baby, and by how your pregnancy and birth went. It exists so a check does not quietly slip through the cracks in a fortnight where every day looks the same.

If you are unsure whether something is due, or you think you have missed one, call your midwife, health visitor or GP surgery. They would far rather take that call than have you wait.

Tapping Add on a suggestion opens the normal form with the type pre-filled — you set the real date and time from your letter or your red book.

What the first year usually looks like

Rough shape, England (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland vary a little):

First 72 hours — newborn physical examination, hearing screen.
Day 5 — blood spot test.
Days 10–14 — health visitor new birth visit, and weight check.
6–8 weeks — GP check for baby, and the mother's postnatal check. Book both.
8, 12 and 16 weeks — the primary immunisation course.
9–12 months — health visitor review.
12–13 months — MMR, Hib/MenC, pneumococcal and MenB boosters.
2 to 3 years — nasal flu vaccine each autumn.
3 years 4 months — pre-school booster and second MMR.

The definitive list is the NHS vaccination schedule and your baby's personal child health record — the red book. Circle is a memory aid for the two of them, not a replacement.

Small things we got deliberately right

Mum's appointments belong here too. The six-week postnatal check is the most commonly skipped appointment in the whole calendar, and it is one of the few designed entirely around you.
Editable by parents, visible to everyone. A caregiver can see the day; only parents can change it.
No badge counts, no red dots for the sake of it. The reminder fires once. That is the whole nag.

Try it tonight

Open Circle, go to Calendar, and put in the next thing you know about — even if it is three weeks away. Then glance at Expected appointments and see whether anything is sitting there that you meant to ring about. Two minutes now buys back a surprising amount of head space.

The calendar is included in the £1.99 a month plan that covers your whole circle, and it is part of the 10-day free trial. If you want the wider picture of what Circle logs, our features page has the lot.