Poor design choices and slow performance

My wife and I downloaded this app to use with our first child. We liked how there was an option to sync between devices, so I could log her breastfeeds while she was figuring things out. The sync option cost an additional $4, which we paid for. I also paid the $1 to disable ads, since they were distracting and made the interface look bad.

There were three problems with the app that made us abandon it on day 3, and to start using a new one.

First, you can only enter a feed after it’s finished. You can’t click something to say when you start and then again when you stop. You have to memorize your start time, and then calculate the length of time you breastfed once you’re done. Granted, that’s not rocket science, but when you have a zero-day old child, when you’re sleep deprived, and when you’re spending all your intellectual resources trying to figure out how to breastfeed and get a snug swaddle, it’s too hard. We tried a work around where we basically created a fake feed when we started breastfeeding, then edited it after the fact to reflect the total time. But that was often more trouble than it was worth.

Second, the way it counts breastfeeding sessions is wrong. It counts every entry as a feeding. So if you do 20 minutes on one breast, then 10 on the other, it will say you’ve done two feedings. But this is not what you want when you’re trying to see how many times you’ve fed per day. You want each session to count once, regardless of how many times you switch over. This is what pediatricians will ask you about, and this is more important when gauging if you’re feeding enough.

Third, the app was incredibly slow to load. I had to wait about a solid minute before it would become responsive to any touch input. And if I switched apps, that countdown would begin again. Of note, this only happened to my version of the app, after I paid to remove the ads. My wife’s version seemed fine.

Overall, the poor designs choices and slow performance made us give up very quickly. We’re now using another app that we like far better, and that still syncs.

New dad with an iPhone about Eat Sleep: Simple Baby Tracking, v2.4