Baby Apps - help or hindrance?

I am seeing an increase in parents using apps to monitor their baby’s feeds, sleep, and, sometimes, nappies. But are these helpful or are they hindering parenting instincts and causing more stress?

We live in such a tech focused world and rely on our phones and apps for everything, so it seems only natural that when it comes to keeping track of baby behaviour we turn to our phones. In fact you might monitor things yourself – your sleep or activity levels.

It is really easy to feel under pressure with a newborn; you want to get it right, and feeds and sleep are the most stressful part of it. There are so many sources of information on how long, how often etc and you want to know if your baby matches up, but in your sleep deprived state you can’t really remember the details. So, an app could help you keep track. Particularly as in the early days your midwife and health visitor will be keeping a track on your baby’s weight, and the questions might have you feeling a bit flustered as you try and think back over the last 24 hours. This is especially true if there are any concerns about weight gain or feeding, and in that case, you will want to ensure regular feeds of good duration and plenty of wet and dirty nappies. In those blurry days and weeks after birth the easiest thing might be to track it all on an app.

For lots of parents this can be really helpful. If you are having difficulty with feeds you might feed it reassuring to know when your baby feeds or if you have to let your health visitor know how often your baby feeds you can easily keep track. For others it can become quite stressful.

Most babies (and mums) are doing just fine and constant tracking can be another job to think about – sit down to feed and have to grab your phone to start the timer. And what if your baby is a snacker, no sooner started a feed than they are done only to be back 20 minutes later. What sort of picture are you building up and is it helpful?

I also see mums finding it hard to know when to stop using the app. Do you stop once any weight worries are resolved? Or when you feel feeding has more rhythm to it? From what I see, you don’t! It’s almost a bit scary to stop having all that information at your finger tips.  

I did a browse through some chat rooms to see what people were saying. There were quite a few who stopped after a month or two, when things felt more settled. Most seemed to stop by around 6 months but others were still going beyond that.

There were a couple of themes that were interesting in the comments.

One was the people who used it so they had the answer when someone asked when their baby last fed or how many dirty nappies they have normally.

The other was the people who stopped because they found it stressful – stressful to remember to log everything and stressful if there was a deviation from the norm.

It is obviously a personal decision whether a tracker is the right thing for you and for how long but if you feel it is causing you more anxiety, they aren’t essential.

When I did some research for this blog I found an article entitled ’14 best apps for new parents’. And my first thought was overwhelm. Reading through the descriptions I felt more overwhelm, logging feeds, naps and nappies, reminders for sleep and feed times, tracking milestones and development, ones to share with family and friends, ones others can update if they are caring for your baby and so on. Some free, some not. How do you even choose and where do you stop?

What benefits do the apps give you?

You can keep track of feed times, which side if breastfed, oz if bottle fed, numbers of nappies and sleep times. If you look at your sleep times maybe you start to learn how long your baby is typically awake for and can predict when sleep is likely to be due. Some of the apps will learn from your data and prompt you when a feed or nap is due. And for some parents and babies this can be incredibly helpful. If your little one has found a rhythm and needs things quite timely it can work really well for you.

If you are finding sleep and feeds to be a little random it can be really unhelpful being told the next feed is due and your baby is fast asleep or they should be sleeping when they are living their best life under the play gym.  

If you are finding things tough, maybe with breastfeeding, you could use the app to see your progress. If you are getting support from a specialist, seeing the changes over a few weeks could give you the confidence boost you need.

Same with sleep, you think you have the worst sleeper in the world – maybe the app shows you that actually things aren’t as bad as they feel to you, or that last week was bad but things are looking better now. Or maybe it just makes you feel worse!

Let’s be honest you might not be able to think straight in this time and the data might be helpful to stop overthinking and upset.

What about your instincts? What if you could let go of the need to know feed times and nap times, watch your baby and follow their lead?

It can feel quite liberating to go with their flow, to let them sleep when they need and feed when they want to. Watching your baby not the clock or the app.

It’s all about knowing your baby, and yourself! If your baby won’t sleep if there is something else to do then you might need to be a bit more proactive in ensuring it happens, and a reminder might help you keep things on track. Although, a quick look at the clock might be enough – it depends if you can remember when the last nap was! But if they start to grizzle and you can snuggle or feed them and they fall asleep you might not need to be tracking everything.

And a word of caution – do a little research into what any data is used for. Are you putting in your baby’s date of birth or any personal details. Just be aware of how much you are sharing and where.

No right or wrong! If it works for you, go for it. If it stresses you, maybe try something different.