Darren Andes' Baby Tracker: Nursing is a tap-friendly iPhone app that allows moms to log their breastfeeding activity, whether it's to keep track of how much and how long the kid's eating, or just to remember which side the kid hit last.
Contrary to the opinion of many befuddled commenters on Gizmodo, who are frozen like deer in the headlight by the app icon's silhouetted nipple, this nursing tracker might actually be worth the ten dollar price tag: it's designed for easy, ongoing use, and it logs information you might want regularly.
Which distinguishes it from basically every other baby or pregnancy-related app I found in the iTunes App Store's Health & Fitness section. Most pregnancy apps either mimic free website services, or they're only useful for very limited windows of time, or both. There are two due date calculators, for example, which, unless you often find yourself needing to reverse engineer your friends' sex lives from their own due dates, you will use approximately once.
Birth Buddy is a contraction timer, which might be marginally better than the clock on the cable box or any other clock, if you have the presence of mind to use it. [On the Gizmodo-plus side, it does have more icon boobage.] Growth Chart implies that you're weighing and measuring your little Sweetie McLaughing more frequently than the pediatrician is, a very unlikely situation.
Pregnancy Kick Counter's uselessness is compounded by odd design and even odder medical posturing. ["If you detect a decline in movement, call, no matter what the time. We've all been taught to be considerate of others but this is a different situation. Doctors, like firemen, have chosen a 24-hour occupation. You've chosen to become a mother. As a mother your job is to protect your baby. Pick up the phone and call at once."] There's another boob, though, the biggest yet. Also, it's made by Ethan Allen, a distant cousin whose website appears to not exist.
There's a very nice-looking ovulation calendar app, but I figure I have to draw the Daddy Types editorial line somewhere, and no matter where I draw it, tracking periods always ends up on the other side of it. Also, since the only iPhone in our house is handknit, perhaps someone who's seen more than screenshots will care to weigh in on the expectant/new parenting tools in the iPhone's box.
iPhone's breastfeeding app has a nice icon [gizmodo via like ten people]
Trixie Tracker all the way, baby. OK, he doesn't have an actual iPhone app yet (Ben, you need to get on that, dude), but he does have a lovely iPhone-friendly web interface, and I can attest that it works beautifully. Plus it can handle not just nursing data, but also sleep, diapers, bottles, medicine, solids, etc.
The only problem is that it is ridiculously addictive.
I did that for a while as a new mom, panicked with twins, but it seemed to make me more nervous. Plus I spent too much time logging things and not enough paying attention to the babies.
my husband had a program like the birth buddy for his palm pilot. it didn't help us since my contractions were 4-6 minutes apart--not the classic 5 minutes. i can blame user error, i suppose, but the program might help a first time parent by detecting a pattern and suggesting a call to the dr...
As much as I love the iPhone, I don't think I'm going to want to be futzing around with it every 20 minutes when I'm going into labor!
There's another very useful baby app called Growth Chart. It allows you to enter baby weight, length and head circumference, and it graphs the measurements on a growth chart (with statistical curves), just like at the doctor's office.
Super useful! We kept worrying about our 2-month-old's daughter's weight gain, until we started using this program, and saw that she follows a normal growth pattern.
The program is well designed, and also supports multiple children (good for twins etc)!
Check out 'Baby Time'. I think it rocks. I love the week-to-week baby guide. It's been a lot of fun to follow along. And it looks pretty cool. I don't use the data chart part of it yet, but I love the other two elements. And it is multi child capable. I guess we'll just have to have two more!!! AAAHHHH!!!!
I am a mom of 2 under 2 (6 and 22 months) and a proud owner of a iPhone.
I also just launched an iPhone app for moms called [Baby Diaper Tracker App #15]. It was featured in Forbes and is getting great reviews.
The app allows you to not only log (but also analyze, share via email, view stats) diapers, feedings and sleep with just a tap. Check it out:
recent press
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download
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Thanks for taking a look! Would love to hear feedback, suggestions, etc.
Jackie
Read more: "Cool Parenting and Just For Mom iPhone Apps"
[link deleted, but Google-able title left intact for the truly, truly interested.]
[Here's some feedback. Don't cut n paste your PR spam in my comments. If you want to flack your app on DT, send an email. Since your app is "just for mom," though, I guess I don't see the point. -ed.]
Hmm.. I love Baby Activity Logger my self! to each their own!