u/dtr69

Because a surprising amount of newborn care involves waiting during long feeds, contact naps, or while the baby settles.

I’m a new dad and the solo developer behind Milli, a shared baby-tracking app. While using it myself, I would start a feeding or sleep timer and then leave the app to play a game. Sometimes I would forget to return and stop the timer.

So I added an optional Games tab directly inside Milli.

It currently includes Solitaire and a small puzzle game called Tile Pop. Parents can pass the time while an activity timer continues running, then return to tracking without switching apps or losing context.

It’s probably the strangest feature in a baby tracker, but early usage suggests that people who open the games spend longer in the app. I’m still collecting enough data to determine whether this improves long-term retention or simply produces longer individual sessions, so I don’t want to overstate the result.

It taught me an interesting product lesson: a useful feature doesn’t always need to address the product’s primary task. Sometimes it can support the situation surrounding that task.

Milli’s core features include baby activity tracking, offline support, and real-time synchronization between parents and caregivers. It’s free and ad-supported, without a subscription paywall for its core tracking features.

I’m curious what other builders think:

• Is this a thoughtful contextual feature or unnecessary feature creep?
• Would you promote the games as a differentiator or leave them for users to discover?

Website:
https://milli.mapslabs.net/

Android:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.milli.babymonitor

iOS:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/milli-baby-tracker-log/id6761766193

Hi everyone,

I’m a new dad and the solo developer behind Milli, a baby tracker that is now available on Android and iOS.

I started building it after trying several alternatives and finding that many useful features required subscriptions. My goal was to create a free, ad-supported tracker where the core functionality isn’t locked behind a paywall.

Milli tracks feeding, sleep, diapers, medicine, temperature, growth, and milestones. Its main differentiator is real-time family sync: one parent or caregiver logs an activity, and everyone else can immediately see it. It also works offline and supports multiple children.

I added an unusual feature too: built-in Solitaire and Tile Pop. They’re intended for passing the time during long nighttime feeds or while waiting for the baby to settle.

The app is live, but I’m still refining its positioning and presentation. I would particularly appreciate feedback on these two questions:

1. Is the combination of family sync and no subscription paywall a clear, compelling differentiator?
2. Do the built-in games feel like a thoughtful addition, or do they distract from the app’s main purpose?

Android:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.milli.babymonitor

iOS:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/milli-baby-tracker-log/id6761766193

Thank you direct and critical feedback is very welcome.

When our baby was born we tried the popular tracking apps, and each one had a paywall somewhere that mattered: one wanted a subscription for family sharing, one wouldn't let you save entries after the trial, one locked basically every feature behind premium. The pattern is the same get you logging, then charge you $35–70/year for some part of the core loop.

I think a baby tracker's core loop log it, and let the other tired person in the house see it shouldn't have a toll booth anywhere in it. So I built Milli. There is no premium tier. Live on both Google Play and the App Store.

What's included (no tiers, no locked features):

• Unlimited family members, real-time sync my wife logs a feed, it's on my phone instantly. Grandma's phone too.
• Lock-screen notification that stays in sync across every family device "last fed 1h 45m ago" visible without unlocking your phone at 3am
• Feeding, sleep, diapers, pumping + ~20 activity types
• WHO growth percentile charts, developmental milestones 0–24mo
• Multi-child support
• CSV export it's your data, take it anywhere
• Dark mode, because every baby app is used in a dark room at 3am and half of them are blinding white

Tech for the curious: React Native + Expo, Supabase backend, local-first with AsyncStorage as the source of truth. The hardest part by far was keeping the lock-screen notification consistent across multiple devices (silent FCM data pushes + background sync).

On money, since this sub always asks: no paywall, no subscription, no premium tier. I may add light ads down the road if costs require it, but the core loop your family seeing your baby's data will never be the thing that costs money.

Site: https://milli.mapslabs.net/

Would love feedback, especially from parents: what does your current tracker charge for, and did you pay?

After becoming a dad, I went looking for a baby tracker app that would actually work for us.

I thought it would be easy, but most of what I found had the same problems:

• missing features we actually needed
• too much friction when you’re trying to log something while exhausted
• weak sharing between parents
• basic functionality locked behind a paywall

What I wanted was pretty simple:

An app where my partner and I could both track feedings, diapers, sleep, and the usual baby stuff, stay synced, and quickly answer the question we kept asking all day and night:

“Why is the baby crying right now?”

Usually the answer was somewhere in the recent history, but when you’re sleep deprived, keeping that timeline in your head is harder than it sounds.

So instead of settling, I built the app I wanted us to have.

The main thing I cared about was family sharing. I didn’t want one parent to be the person who remembers everything while the other has to ask for updates. I wanted both of us to see the same timeline and know what happened last without needing a full handoff.

I also wanted it to be usable without the usual “download free, hit paywall 2 minutes later” experience.

So I built it to be:

• fast to log
• shared between family members
• focused on the features that actually matter in the newborn stage
• usable without hiding the core experience behind a paywall

Built this because I needed it myself first, but I’d love feedback from other builders:

• Is “no paywall + family sharing” a strong enough hook?
• What would make you trust/download something like this?

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.milli.babymonitor&pcampaignid=web_share

https://testflight.apple.com/join/fKzNvV97