diff --git a/migrations/demo.sql b/migrations/demo.sql
index 8eb0d76..73b2d4b 100644
--- a/migrations/demo.sql
+++ b/migrations/demo.sql
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 insert into contacts(id, birthday, manually_freshened_at) values
-  (0, '--0415', '2000-01-01T12:00:00');
+  (0, '04-15', '2000-01-01T12:00:00');
 insert into names(contact_id, sort, name) values
   (0, 0, 'Alex Aaronson'),
   (0, 1, 'Alexi'),
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ insert into groups(contact_id, name, slug) values
   (1, 'ABC', 'abc');
 
 insert into contacts(id, birthday) values
-  (2, '19951018');
+  (2, '1995-10-18');
 insert into names(contact_id, sort, name) values
   (2, 0, 'Charlie Certaindate');
 insert into groups(contact_id, name, slug) values
diff --git a/migrations/each_user/0014_birthday-format.sql b/migrations/each_user/0014_birthday-format.sql
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..80b69cf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/migrations/each_user/0014_birthday-format.sql
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+update contacts
+  set birthday = substr(birthday, 3, 2) || '-' || substr(birthday, 5, 2)
+  where birthday GLOB '--[01][0-9][0-3][0-9]';
+
+update contacts
+  set birthday = substr(birthday, 1, 4) || '-' || substr(birthday, 5, 2) || '-' || substr(birthday, 7, 2)
+  where birthday GLOB '[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][01][0-9][0-3][0-9]';
diff --git a/src/models/year_optional_date.rs b/src/models/year_optional_date.rs
index d0052b8..a4cd381 100644
--- a/src/models/year_optional_date.rs
+++ b/src/models/year_optional_date.rs
@@ -57,21 +57,18 @@ impl Display for YearOptionalDate {
 impl FromStr for YearOptionalDate {
     type Err = anyhow::Error;
     fn from_str(str: &str) -> Result<Self, Self::Err> {
-        let date_re = Regex::new(r"^([0-9]{4}|--)([0-9]{2})([0-9]{2})$").unwrap();
+        let date_re = Regex::new(r"^(?:([0-9]{4})-)?([0-9]{2})-([0-9]{2})$").unwrap();
         if let Some(caps) = date_re.captures(str) {
-            let year_str = &caps[1];
+            let year = caps
+                .get(1)
+                .map(|yyyy| i16::from_str(yyyy.as_str()).unwrap());
             let month = i8::from_str(&caps[2]).unwrap();
             let day = i8::from_str(&caps[3]).unwrap();
-            let year = if year_str == "--" {
-                None
-            } else {
-                Some(i16::from_str(year_str).unwrap())
-            };
 
             return Ok(Self { year, month, day });
         }
         Err(anyhow::Error::msg(format!(
-            "parsing failure in YearOptionalDate: '{}' does not match regex /([0-9]{{4}}|--)[0-9]{{4}}/",
+            "parsing failure in YearOptionalDate: '{}' does not match regex /([0-9]{{4}}-)?[0-9]{{2}}-[0-9]{{2}}/",
             str
         )))
     }
diff --git a/src/web/contact/mod.rs b/src/web/contact/mod.rs
index 7dc487b..b99abdb 100644
--- a/src/web/contact/mod.rs
+++ b/src/web/contact/mod.rs
@@ -278,10 +278,10 @@ mod get {
                     input name="periodicity" id="periodicity" value=(format!("{:#}", contact.periodicity));
                     span .hint { code { "[0-9]+ (yr|mo|wk|day|h|m|s)" } "(" a href="https://docs.rs/jiff/latest/jiff/struct.Span.html#parsing-and-printing" { "details" } ")" }
                 }
-                label { "birthday" }
+                label for="birthday" { "birthday" }
                 div {
-                    input name="birthday" value=(contact.birthday.clone().map_or("".to_string(), |b| b.serialize()));
-                    span .hint { code { "(yyyy|--)mmdd" } " or free text" }
+                    input name="birthday" id="birthday" value=(contact.birthday.clone().map_or("".to_string(), |b| format!("{b}")));
+                    span .hint { code { "(yyyy-)?mm-dd" } " or free text" }
                 }
                 label for="manually_freshened_on" { "freshened" }
                 div x-data=(json!({ "date": mfresh_on_str, "stamp": mfresh_at_str })) x-init="today = () => (new Date().toISOString().split('T')[0])" {