Hi, i'm pretty late to the feedback thread - i had some delay in receiving the email with the test link. I have now downloaded and unlocked the pro features. I'll start off by saying i have three children, the youngest being the one i'm using it for (obviously!)
On first impressions, the app is well laid out, simple to use and has lots of great features. I've skimmed through the whole thread and agree with many of the reviewers that the health section is really useful. I would usually go to google when any of the kids were ill and really have to do a lot of sifting to get a reliable answer! This is great and has so much practical info at your fingertips. I'd
hope that it gets updated regularly.
When i had my first and second children i used to write every feed, nappy, sleep etc with boob sides, timings, ml of formula, what was in the nappy etc. The full works and it's like this app has looked through what i recorded and translated it into an app (of course i'm not the only one to have done this which is obviously why this app exists). However i did this for both the first two babies until they were about 6 months. For my third child these apps were starting to become available and i had an iphone by then so i did begin with writing it all down but only for the first few days and then moved to an app. It didn't combine all these features and what would interest me most as an intergrated feature was the baby monitor. I am all for doing it over the wifi and on phones. We have lots of apple products and i have in the past used a separate baby monitor on my phone and either the itouch or the old iphone i had before i upgraded. It worked ok but i was keen to test this one. However i'm struggling to get it to work! The family sharing bit assumes you have another family member with a compatable device which isn't always the case. I'm now trying to figure out if i can do it on a different email accessed through one of the other devices we have. I shall add more feedback when and if i get it to work!
A feature i also found really useful which would be nice to have on this app too is white noise. My three babies all slept with white noise. For first baby - 8 years ago, we bought a white noise cd. Lost it and for number 2 five years ago we bought an itunes white noise track online but for our last baby we found an app with a free hairdryer white noise. You had to pay to unlock more (hoover, washing machine etc!!!) but it's a simple thing to add to this app and would have been helpful for us.
The early stages with a baby have been made so much less boring (yes - i was pretty bored as well as tired and grumpy and in pain a lot with my first baby) with iphones and access to the internet, email, online books to read and chat forums that you can access with just one hand while breastfeeding, comforting or just lying next to them to try and get them to sleep. Ours are 3 or 4 years apart in age so there was less of the toddler wanting attention and i had so much down time stuck feeding or whatever so i would have loved loved loved this app back then. Right now i am loving the newly discovered mumsnet talk app that links in from this app. How did i not know about this before?!! I used to go through facebook, find a mumsnet post and link through that to get into talk. This is 1000% better!
Slightly off topic but it's linked to the app and i got so much comfort and support through mumsnet talk throughout each baby stage i think it's a really important feature in this app.
A thing i would like to change is the annoying way you need to scroll through 1g increments on weight etc. That would be easier if you could type it also.
I would add a vaccination tick sheet with individual imms listed and a bit of info about them. I know it varies by region but that could be included in the info. A similar tick sheet of milestones by dates would be nice (i like lists and ticking things off) i know every child is different however i found those books where it tells you what your child should be doing at different stages really informative. It had the milestones split in my fav book - what your child should be able to do, probably be able to do and might even be able to do if very advanced. It's not about being competitive but about trying to identify things that could be a worry. For example a friends second child didn't speak and she would have missed a serious hearing condition had she not kept an eye on the milestones instead of listening to people telling her that second children speak later and not to worry.
All in all, a lovely app and well worth the price, especially if you are the type of person who wants to record all the things like nappies, feeds etc. I am that type which didn't change after the first or second child! Recording it gave me confidence and helped me enormously. I will be recommending to my many friends who are pregnant and worh newborns.
Thanks for letting me review!