Mummy’s Right Hand (Virtual) Man … The Baby Connect App Review

With all the late nights, short naps and severe fatigue in the early days as a new mum dealing with a newborn, days merged in to nights and nights in to days so I was constantly confused/forgetting when I’d fed last, how much milk I’d given and how long he’d slept for!

Then I was introduced to the Baby Connect app and my life changed!

This app helped form the start of a dreamt-of routine as it allowed me to analyse and compare on graphs and easily spot patterns forming.

You can get the app for £3.99 on Android, iPhone, iPad, Windows phone and web based (for free) www.baby-connect.com.

The app is a user friendly all round comprehensive tool which enables you to monitor in detail pretty much everything!

A handy feature about this app is, multiple users can synchronize data between accounts over the internet.  So if Preetam updates the app, it automatically shows up on my app and vice versa.  This is a really useful feature as it means multiple people can use the same account for example the grandparents when they are baby sitting.

I found the following tools particularly helpful:

Feeding

For breast feeding it’s brilliant as you can monitor whether the left or right breast was used (easily forgettable!) and also the duration. This is helpful for when it comes to the next feed in knowing which breast to use.

The app also has a pumping tracker for when you want to express milk which tracks duration and quantity and which breast.

For formula feeds, the app allows you to monitor milk quantity in mls or ounces (I always went by mls but the midwife always went by ounces!). It’s great that you can monitor feed times over a period of time and you can then see daily summaries, statistics and graphs of number of bottles, amount consumed and duration fed over a period of time. This helps you to pick up on patterns and deviations from your baby’s feeding habits.

I found this particularly helpful when feeding back to the midwife at the early stages and at the later stages for identifying patterns. We are now in a clear pattern of breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner with time slots thanks to this app.

Solid food tracker

The solid food tracker helps to ensure Arjun is getting a variety of food and also helps with identifying any allergies (we haven’t had any yet touch wood!).  If I was left to my own devices, I’d struggle to remember what he’s been fed at each meal!

Nappy changes (and content!)

This feature helps you remember when you last changed baby’s nappy and also how many wee/poo nappies per day – this was really helpful as days and nights often merged in to one and I would forget if Arjun had poo’ed that day which the health visitors were keen on knowing.

Now it has helped me identify when Arjun goes poo especially which will later help with full potty training.  Knowing when Arjun poo’s (pretty much in a routine with this since weaning), it means we can put him on the toilet when at home (much easier to clean than a messy nappy!). He seems much happier pooing on the potty.

We’re using a tommee tippee trainer seat and he really likes it!

Sleep

This app is also helpful in identifying when baby naps so you can plan your day accordingly. It’s especially helpful in determining whether we could make baby groups and also when to plan play dates in the early months.

Monitoring Arjun’s sleep helps me ensure he gets enough rest in the day.  He can often become quite ratty if he’s over tired.

Medicine

You can also monitor medication administered on this app.  This is particularly helpful now that we are in to the swing of things with teething and are often using Calpol or Nurofen to help with pain management.

The medical section also enables you to monitor baby’s temperature, vaccinations, weight, height and head size to name a few.

 

As well as the above, which are the bits I found most useful, you can also monitor the following on the app:

• Baby’s mood
• Baby’s activities – you can also add your own
• Milestones & Diary – I use my Mom’s One Line A Day for this but if I didn’t, it would be a really useful feature.

You can compare with previous day and previous week averages, and view the data on graphs or graphical timeline views to identify trends. The information can also be emailed in an excel format if you ever needed to show for example doctors detailed trends.

Although we are not quite there yet, the app also enables you to monitor multiple children.

It’s a really well designed app for managing your little one’s daily life and to help you have a little reassurance especially if you suffer from baby brain like I do!

It’s a new mummy’s best friend!

How have you managed your baby’s schedule?x