Review of Baby Feeding Tracking Apps
Life with baby Ryan is hectic! Perhaps just a tad more hectic than I had anticipated. In between endless feedings, diaper changes, and plenty play time, I try my best to squeeze in a little bit of me time here and there. My latest attempt would be this long-waited post and I'm so excited!
Being a first-time parent, I'm very cautious about anything related to my baby's health and I have used three methods to track Ryan's patterns, namely the old paper and pencil, the Baby Feeding Log App, and the Eat Sleep App on. I'll be reviewing all three in this post.
One good thing about the paper and pencil way was that it was super accessible. Anyone knows how to do it. It wasn't bound by any technology. I can't recall how many times I had asked my mom or Allan to note down a feeding time when both of my hands were tied up by the fussing baby.
But I had to switch to an app. The paper log was getting long and unmanageable. I had to count the number of feedings per day to make sure Ryan was on track - he was so sleepy and didn't seem to want to eat so that I had to be strict about feeding on time. In addition, there were many other aspects of baby tracking that I wanted to automate. For example, it would have been very nice if an app could tell me how much time my baby actively nursed during certain time periods.
About a month later, I switched out of this app because I got frustrated with not being able to do one thing. The one thing was tracking feeding time without having the user manually enter a start time and an end time. Ideally, I'd like to be able to say "Start" and then "Stop" without having to look up what time it was. And since the app had access to my phone's clock, why not just do it for me?
Another flaw that may have seemed minor to some bothered me quite a bit. Specifically, one way to enter a feeding is to specify a "Start" time followed by a duration. What was odd was that the duration was only allowed in increments of 5 minutes. I found that to be very arbitrary. Babies don't read time! (Talking to those who even try to get their babies on a schedule...)
To start off, there was no way to cancel out of some of the workflows once you've started it, whether it was by accident or not. I remember hitting the Trash Can Button in multiple occasions, by accident, and couldn't get out! The only way to "back out" that I was able to figure out was to restart my phone which would reset the app. There was a missed opportunity of design for mistakes.
A greater issue was the unexpected use of a single GUI to handle multiple distinct workflows. It was baffling to see, for example, when adding a Diaper Change, the Start Feeding button which is not part of my workflow! In fact, if I decided that I wanted to start a feeding, given that I was already in the middle of a diaper change workflow, I could! I didn't think this flexibility was cool. I'd rather call it cognitive dissonance.
(I really want to recall a third flaw because three is a magic number. But I can't. So I'll just leave it like this.)
Being a first-time parent, I'm very cautious about anything related to my baby's health and I have used three methods to track Ryan's patterns, namely the old paper and pencil, the Baby Feeding Log App, and the Eat Sleep App on. I'll be reviewing all three in this post.
The Old Paper and Pencil Log
While we were at the hospital, we were given a sheet of paper with a table printed on it to keep track of Ryan's feedings. It worked OK for the first couple days but soon after coming home, I became frustrated with having to carry a pencil and the sheet around.
One good thing about the paper and pencil way was that it was super accessible. Anyone knows how to do it. It wasn't bound by any technology. I can't recall how many times I had asked my mom or Allan to note down a feeding time when both of my hands were tied up by the fussing baby.
But I had to switch to an app. The paper log was getting long and unmanageable. I had to count the number of feedings per day to make sure Ryan was on track - he was so sleepy and didn't seem to want to eat so that I had to be strict about feeding on time. In addition, there were many other aspects of baby tracking that I wanted to automate. For example, it would have been very nice if an app could tell me how much time my baby actively nursed during certain time periods.
Eat Sleep
To cope with some of the inconvenience I experienced with the paper log, I first tried out the Eat Sleep App. I liked how the app tallied up the number of feedings so I didn't have to (I would not trust my sleep deprived brain). User has the option to see the total by day, week, or month, which allowed one to observe patterns over time.
Another flaw that may have seemed minor to some bothered me quite a bit. Specifically, one way to enter a feeding is to specify a "Start" time followed by a duration. What was odd was that the duration was only allowed in increments of 5 minutes. I found that to be very arbitrary. Babies don't read time! (Talking to those who even try to get their babies on a schedule...)
Baby Feeding Log
Switching to Baby Feeding Log made it so easy for me to recording feedings by simply pressing a Start Button. The app also allowed alternative workflows, e.g., entering a feeding after the fact. However, as a "whining" user, as my husband puts it, I always manage to find problems with apps that fall into my laps. Here are some of the issues I still recall (I stopped touching the app two months ago when Ryan had established a consistent weight gain pattern).To start off, there was no way to cancel out of some of the workflows once you've started it, whether it was by accident or not. I remember hitting the Trash Can Button in multiple occasions, by accident, and couldn't get out! The only way to "back out" that I was able to figure out was to restart my phone which would reset the app. There was a missed opportunity of design for mistakes.
A greater issue was the unexpected use of a single GUI to handle multiple distinct workflows. It was baffling to see, for example, when adding a Diaper Change, the Start Feeding button which is not part of my workflow! In fact, if I decided that I wanted to start a feeding, given that I was already in the middle of a diaper change workflow, I could! I didn't think this flexibility was cool. I'd rather call it cognitive dissonance.
(I really want to recall a third flaw because three is a magic number. But I can't. So I'll just leave it like this.)
Summary
To sum up, I started with the old school paper and pencil. That soon ran out of steam because the log was getting too long and unmanageable, and I didn't feel like carrying paper and pencil around on top of a crying Baby Ryan. So I played with two apps, first Eat Sleep and then Baby Feeding Log. Eat Sleep did not allow my primary workflow which was to click a button to start recording a feeding. So I switched to Baby Feeding Log and was happy about its support for my workflow. Just like any apps, Baby Feeding was not perfect. It's got some obvious usability issues. If you ask me what I'd pick next time around, I might make my own! :-)
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