A Meal Train alternative that also schedules visitors

After a baby arrives, the two things everyone wants to help with are meals and meeting the baby. Meal-train sites handle the first. Peekaboo was built to handle both from one link, so people book a visiting time the same way they claim a meal.

The short answer

• If you only need meals, or you want a donation fund or gift cards, Meal Train or Give InKind are well established and do that well.
• If visitors are the bigger headache, Peekaboo lets you set visiting times, cap how many people come, share your visiting rules and pause visits, alongside meals, gifts and baby updates.

Why visits need the same treatment as meals

A meal calendar stops three lasagnes arriving on one night. Visits cause the same problem, only worse: people turn up during a feed, two groups arrive at once, or someone stays three hours. Most families handle visits by text, which means one tired parent answering the same question twenty times.

In Peekaboo you choose the times you're open to visitors. Family pick an open slot from their phone, see your visiting rules before they come, and the slot shows as booked. If you've had enough for the week, you pause visits and nobody else can book.

How they compare

Based on each service's own published information as at October 2026. Features and prices change, so check their sites before deciding.

What Peekaboo does differently

• No accounts for helpers. Family open your link and book or claim. Nothing to download, nothing to sign up for.
• Private by default. Visitors see that a time is booked, never who booked it or their details.
• Built around a new baby. Visiting rules, a gifts list, baby updates and notes for the baby sit on the same page as meals and visits.
• One payment, no subscription. Start free; if you need it unlimited, it's AU$14.99 once. No ads.
• Two parents can run it. Your husband or wife can manage the page from their own phone, so the person recovering doesn't have to.

When another option is the better fit

If the main need is money rather than meals or visits, for example after a hard birth or a long hospital stay, a site with a donation fund or gift cards will serve you better. If the support is for something other than a new baby, such as an illness or a bereavement, a general care calendar is built for that. Peekaboo does one season well: the first weeks at home with a newborn.

Setting it up

Create your baby's page, add the days and times you're happy to have visitors, list the nights you'd like a meal, and share the one link with family and friends. For ideas on what visiting times and rules to set, read How to manage visitors after your baby arrives.