Most answers are inside the app. The rest are here.

Check these, in order:

1. Are alarms allowed? iOS has to allow alarms for Moo Dreams: Settings › Apps › Moo Dreams › Alarms. When they are not, the Barn and the clock show a warning.
2. Is the app current? Update, open it once so it arms everything again, and look at the Barn: it names any alarm iOS refused, with Try again.
3. Was the device on? An alarm on a device that is off or flat cannot ring. Charge it overnight; the clock keeps the screen on all night by design.
4. Was it restarted? After a restart a device has to be unlocked once before any alarm can ring. That is iOS. Keep automatic updates for the daytime.
5. Does this device ring for this person? Each alarm rings on one device: a kid's bedside device for its kid, a shared device for everyone, a parent's phone only for the grown-up it was given under Settings › This device › Role. The kids' alarms never ring on a parent's phone.
6. Was it an Everyone day? On the days the all-herd alarm claims, it stands in for each kid's own alarm; their rows show those days hollow.

On the Lock Screen an alarm rings at the device's alarm volume (iOS Settings › Sounds), which no app can change. On the Night Stand the app turns the media volume up to full when it rings and puts it back when the morning ends. The bedtime check-in warns the night before when the media volume, charger or battery look wrong.

iOS puts a Stop button on every alarm and no app can remove it. In Moo Dreams, Stop is a snooze: it buys the minutes the parent allowed, then the alarm comes back. Wake up opens the app to finish the alarm with its challenge, after which the morning message plays.

With Must finish the challenge on (it is, unless a parent turns it off) the alarm keeps coming back for as long as it takes. Only a parent can end it early: tap the lock in the corner of the ringing alarm and enter the PIN.

That is Check back, if the alarm has it: a set number of minutes after the challenge a quiet "Still up?" asks for one tap, and with no tap in two minutes the alarm rings again. Answer the tap, or set Check back to Off in the alarm's After the challenge section.

Swipe the alarm in the kid's list and choose Skip next. The alarm skips its next ring and carries on after. For a week off, open the Barn's Everyone section and tap Holidays: add the holiday with its first day off and the day the alarms come back, as many as you like, planned ahead. On those days no alarm rings for anyone, and End the holiday now brings them back early. For one special morning, give the kid an alarm set to Just once with its day; it rings that morning and switches itself off.

The clock drives the lights, so the Night Stand has to be on the screen; a phone in a pocket does not light the room. The lights are the ones you picked in the alarm's Before the ring › Lights, from your Home app. A bulb that dims makes the best dawn, from a glimmer to the brightness you chose at the ring; a plain switch comes on at the ring. A rehearsal leaves them alone.

A wake light is a plan with no ring, so it lives on the Night Stand alone: leave the clock on the screen and on its charger through the night. It shows a moon until the sunrise window, Almost morning through it, and the sun at the time. Off the screen nothing happens, by design.

The morning's photo is compared with yours by how the whole frame looks, so stand where the kid will stand when you take yours, with the same things in view. Easy forgives the morning light and a step aside; Hard wants nearly the same frame. Try the mission in the alarm's challenge settings to see how strict a setting is. The sticker needs an iPhone; on an iPad the alarm asks for the phrase instead.

While the app is on the screen it takes the ring over from iOS a few seconds early, so nothing should show beside the clock. If a banner ever does, export the log (Settings › Diagnostics) and send it along; it names the moment and what the engine decided.

A song is in The Whole Herd. Once that is unlocked, a song needs three things on the device that rings: Moo Dreams allowed to use Apple Music (Settings › Apps › Moo Dreams), an Apple Account with the family's Apple Music subscription, and the song in that library or the catalog. Open the alarm on that device and tap Play it here for a moment: the song plays, or the row says which of the three is missing. Whenever a song cannot play, the alarm's recording rings instead, so the morning still happens.

On the Lock Screen the recording always rings first, because iOS can only use a sound that ships inside the app; the song takes over once the app is on the screen.

They shape the recording, which is the backup sound once a song is set. The song plays at full volume until the kid starts the challenge and is never swapped for the energetic sound. Buzz keeps going under a song.

The timer fades them out, and "until the alarm" stops them two minutes before tonight's ring. On a Friday or a holiday night, with no ring before morning, the sounds play for the mix's own length instead, and the mixer says so. They keep playing with the screen locked and can be stopped from the Lock Screen. A phone call or another app taking the audio also stops them; they do not restart on their own after an alarm.

Make a Personal Voice under iOS Settings › Accessibility › Personal Voice (it takes about fifteen minutes of reading aloud). Then allow Moo Dreams to use it: setting up a parent's phone or a shared device asks, and so does the voice picker on a written message. A voice lives on the device that made it, so make it on the device that will read the messages, or allow it on each.

In Voice Memos, share the recording and pick Moo Dreams; or in Messages tap Import a recording and choose a file. Say who it is from and whom it is for, like a recording made here, and whether it plays at wake-up or at bedtime. The first ten minutes are kept. Recordings are part of The Whole Herd.

Tap the message in the Barn to see its rule: some kids or all; any day, chosen days, one date, just once, or after a night with a certain mood; for the morning alarm, after a nap, or either. Dated messages play first on their day, "just once" messages play one time, and a message with no kids picked plays for everyone.

The message waits. A "message is waiting" notification is posted, and it plays the first time the kid opens the app that morning.

The sky needs three things: A livelier Moo on (Settings › This device), a black Night Stand (no background photo), and the charger. The log export says which one is missing: "not charging", "a background photo is set" or "A livelier Moo is off". Under Reduce Motion or in Low Power Mode the sky holds still on purpose; the app follows Low Power Mode as it changes, so the sky starts moving once the charger turns it off.

The sky follows the real day from the device's time zone out of the box, so daylight should show while the sun is up. If it does not, check that the device's time zone is right (iOS Settings › General › Date & Time). Settings › Night Stand › Today shows the sunrise and sunset the app is using and where they come from; turn on Exact sunrise and sunset to put them on the minute.

After wind-down she is in bed, off the edge of the screen, until dawn or the morning's alarm. During her leap over the moon the bottom is empty too, since there is one of her. Over a background photo she only dozes in the corner.

Same Apple Account: turn on Settings › Family sync on both. Another account (a kid's own, the other parent's): on your phone open Settings › Family sync and show the pairing code or send the invitation; the new device scans the code or opens the link during its first screens. A device that joins this way starts as a kid's bedside device, unless the other parent picks My phone first.

Your phone says this when a kid's alarm rang on their device and, the number of minutes you set later, nothing has come back through sync. Either the morning is not done, or the device is off, flat or without Wi-Fi. The notice clears itself once word arrives. Change the minutes or turn it off under Settings › Mornings on this phone.

On the same Apple Account, the first screens look in iCloud and offer to bring the herd back. On another account, join again with the pairing code. The free download keeps every alarm, message and morning on the device itself; only sync needs The Whole Herd.

Start over on this device (bottom of Settings › Family sync) clears this device alone and shows the first screens again; iCloud is untouched. Erase the herd from iCloud removes everything this Apple Account keeps there; every device keeps its own copy and asks what to do. A herd that keeps coming back after an erase was joined from another account and lives in that account's iCloud.

Turn on Guided Access (iOS Settings › Accessibility) so the kid stays in the app, and use Screen Time to block deleting apps and changing settings. Keep Face ID off on a device whose enrolled face is the kid's; the gate falls back to the PIN.

The Barn lists every device and when it last synced. A bedside device that has not checked in since yesterday may be off, flat or without Wi-Fi, and an alarm on a device that is off cannot ring.

Buy once on a parent's device, then tap Restore purchases in Settings on the kid's. Family Sharing is on for the unlock, so a kid's device signed in to a family member's account gets it too.

Free covers one kid with every alarm and challenge, the Gentle, Standard, Quiet start and Wake light styles, written messages, all three packs (positive, fun and faith), the sleep sounds, the bedtime check-in, the Night Stand and Moo. The Whole Herd, a one-time purchase, adds every kid, recorded messages and your voice as the alarm, heavy-sleeper wake-ups, songs from Apple Music, and family sync with the morning banners and Not up yet.