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When tracking your period lets companies track you

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Re: When tracking your period lets companies track you

#121

Post by scruple »

technothrasher wrote: post #50
bregma wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We raised three children without tracking data on their metabolic processes. We nursed them when they were hungry, changed them when they were moist or stinky, and comforted them when they were upset. The only thing we really measured is how little sleep we got. They have all grown into fine adults. I have observed that one of the biggest causes of bad relationships between parents and their children -- and subsequen…

Bah! Back when I was a young parent, we had to track our baby's processes on stone tablets, that were on top of mountain, scratched with our bare fingers, and still our boy grew up into a fine knob thatcher. > do you need what the app gives you to fulfill your responsibilities, or do you just want it to satisfy your urges? There's a third option, which is that while not strictly necessary, certain tools can help make…

> There's a third option, which is that while not strictly necessary, certain tools can help make a job easier, so why not take advantage of them?

Agreed completely! We used (and are still using, for the infant) a homebrew spreadsheet with a pen and a clipboard. Worked incredibly well for all 3 of our children, who are all under 3 years of age. No apps here, no thanks.

edit/ And, best of all, we didn't have to sort out any bullshit software compatibility issues with our friends or family when they were in the house helping. There's no data export/exfiltration problems. When we wanted to share the feeding log, nap schedule, sleep schedule, diaper changing log, etc., for our twins with a couple we're friends with who had their own twins... I spent maybe 10 minutes scanning 18 months of spreadsheets and emailed it over.

Re: When tracking your period lets companies track you

#122

Post by scruple »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #65
technothrasher wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bah! Back when I was a young parent, we had to track our baby's processes on stone tablets, that were on top of mountain, scratched with our bare fingers, and still our boy grew up into a fine knob thatcher. > do you need what the app gives you to fulfill your responsibilities, or do you just want it to satisfy your urges? There's a third option, which is that while not strictly necessary, certain tools can help make…

I agree that "we used to do just fine" isn't a sufficient argument by itself. There are many things that we didn't have when we were kids and even if we turned out fine, they are clearly beneficial (say, meningitis vaccines). But honestly, is there really much value in knowing e.g. exactly how much and how frequently our babies feed? I mean, if you've had a baby you will know that feeding is purely instinctive, they…

We needed to know because, when we brought our twins home from the hospital, the smallest was under 5 lbs. It was incredibly important for/to us to understand, as accurately as we could how much was going in and how much was coming out from both of them because of how small they were. We probably could've stopped after 4-6 months but we kept it up, my wife liked knowing. We maintain a similar spreadsheet today for our infant but I suspect we'll stop around 6 months with this one.

Re: When tracking your period lets companies track you

#123

Post by MandieD »

bregma wrote: post #48
MandieD wrote: post #15

Validates my decision to self-host and donate to Baby Buddy: https://github.com/babybuddy/babybuddy I figured all those “free” (and possibly even the paid) baby apps were likely doing all sorts of shady things with that data. One thing for me to use a period/fertility tracker for myself - quite another to throw my child’s data up to god knows who for god knows what ends long before he could possibly consent. If you d…

We raised three children without tracking data on their metabolic processes. We nursed them when they were hungry, changed them when they were moist or stinky, and comforted them when they were upset. The only thing we really measured is how little sleep we got. They have all grown into fine adults. I have observed that one of the biggest causes of bad relationships between parents and their children -- and subsequen…

I was doing something bold and unusual that neither my grandmother nor my mother did: breastfeeding.

To further complicate matters, my son wasn’t waking up on his own to feed often enough. When I just let him set the pace, he slowly lost weight when he should have been gaining. Additional complication: Covid causing us to be completely on our own those first few months.

Tracking feeding times and weights made the problem more visible, and diapers calmed me down (he wasn’t dehydrated!), and drove me to supplement with formula and to seek out a lactation consultant, who got me to start pumping. Tracking that output let me slowly switch him out of formula back to my milk. My grandmother gave up nursing after a week when her first child was never satisfied, and my mother never attempted it (80s in Texas).

Now that he’s a robust toddler who eats pretty much anything in reach, I no longer bother with food and diaper tracking, but still track temperatures when he’s got a cold because our daycare has strict rules about time since last temperature over 38 before being allowed to return.

So yes, I needed a way to see how often he was feeding and how long, along with matching that up to weight changes. Could I have done it on paper? Sure. Was it easier with the web app? Yes.

Re: When tracking your period lets companies track you

#124

Post by MandieD »

cdubzzz wrote: post #58
MandieD wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I wouldn’t bother suggesting it outside of some place like HN.

Baby Buddy maintainer here — I have often thought about trying to turn the app in to a product for non-techie parents and still respect user privacy but I feel like that is still a hard sell (i.e., I don’t think I’d get far just being more privacy focused than other options out there). Also the options have actually improved a pretty good deal since the time I started working on this for our family (from a usability,…

Baby Buddy is a large part of why I was able to resist the well-meant pressure to just switch him to formula when breastfeeding wasn’t working out right away, and being compelled to log stuff from the beginning actually calmed me down a couple of times, so thank you for continuing to maintain a way to collect data that really helped us out in a way that respects my son’s long-term privacy :)

Re: When tracking your period lets companies track you

#125

Post by magicalist »

Vrondi wrote: post #88
hluska wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet, you keep satisfying your urge to cast judgment on an internet stranger?? What’s the difference? How are you helping?? What utility does angry expert parent bregma provide to this thread or to the other parent’s life??

It really seems like they've been saying to take a deep breath and not pressure yourself into giving away all your data, and people here are self-defensively over-reacting. Saying that you don't _have_ to stress yourself out by being a micro-manager doesn't imply you're evil if you like being a micro-manager.

> take a deep breath and not pressure yourself into giving away all your data

they were responding to a comment about a self-hosted web app, so it's not even relevant

> doesn't imply you're evil

Just that you're doing something "possibly harmful", you're "a sucker", and you're "just satisfying your urges". But, sure, not evil.

Yeah, they were shit comments, people aren't over reacting by asking how they could possibly be helpful.

Re: When tracking your period lets companies track you

#126

Post by MandieD »

hluska wrote: post #90
MandieD wrote: post #15

Validates my decision to self-host and donate to Baby Buddy: https://github.com/babybuddy/babybuddy I figured all those “free” (and possibly even the paid) baby apps were likely doing all sorts of shady things with that data. One thing for me to use a period/fertility tracker for myself - quite another to throw my child’s data up to god knows who for god knows what ends long before he could possibly consent. If you d…

Hey pal, I have no idea why everyone is lining up to tell you that you’re wrong. I loved reading your story and it gave me a lot of warm, fuzzy feelings from when my child was little. Our little people are all different and we all love our little people so we adapt to them the best we can. (My child is almost six, so at this point, ‘she adapts me’.) :) You seem like a wonderful parent and I really dig your attention…

Baby Buddy helped me out in large part because even before I had a kid, I was kind of scatterbrained. After… oh god.

I kind of get why a lot of people react negatively. If you had the happy path, you think lactation consultants are ridiculous (what’s more natural than a baby sucking a boob?!), and of course the baby’s going to cry when he’s hungry, and he’ll be hungry when he needs to eat. And what are grandmothers and aunts and friends with older kids for, but to help the new mother learn her job and to point out to her when they think something’s not quite right with the baby that they’re constantly dropping by to cuddle?

Hi. Welcome to having a kid an ocean away from your close friends, a decade after your mother died, at a point in the pandemic when we were hearing promising news about vaccines being developed and quick, cheap tests on demand were a fantasy.

Re: When tracking your period lets companies track you

#127

Post by a45a33s »

MandieD wrote: post #15

Validates my decision to self-host and donate to Baby Buddy: https://github.com/babybuddy/babybuddy I figured all those “free” (and possibly even the paid) baby apps were likely doing all sorts of shady things with that data. One thing for me to use a period/fertility tracker for myself - quite another to throw my child’s data up to god knows who for god knows what ends long before he could possibly consent. If you d…

we used a piece of paper to log the diapers for the first kid. 2nd kid with more experience we just kept an eye on things and used our judgment. not sure why you need an app for this

Re: When tracking your period lets companies track you

#128

Post by magicalist »

Vrondi wrote: post #91
hluska wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a serious question and I’d love a real response. Why are so many parents so judgmental?? It’s really interesting. OP shared a story about what works for their child. Rather than just leave it be, you judge it, conclude that it’s going to be a cause of a bad relationship between parent and child and then turn it around so it makes the parent seem selfish. Has it ever occurred to you that none of really know wha…

Breathe a little. Concentrate on parenting your child, not on obsessing with what everyone else thinks. If dealing with all the tech and giving away your child's data does _not_ stress you out, then wonderful! Go find somewhere enthusiastic about that to post. However, every message that is critical of the current techno-take-my-child's-data-please culture isn't aimed at your ego as a targeted personal offense. Peopl…

Please stop with the patronizing comments. There's plenty of substance in the GP comment without making sloppy assumptions about the poster's inner thoughts.

Re: When tracking your period lets companies track you

#129

Post by MandieD »

darkwater wrote: post #34
MandieD wrote: post #15

Validates my decision to self-host and donate to Baby Buddy: https://github.com/babybuddy/babybuddy I figured all those “free” (and possibly even the paid) baby apps were likely doing all sorts of shady things with that data. One thing for me to use a period/fertility tracker for myself - quite another to throw my child’s data up to god knows who for god knows what ends long before he could possibly consent. If you d…

> If you don’t know why it matters how many diapers there have been in the last 24 hours and what kind of mess was in there, along with how often and how much milk was consumed, you’ve obviously not been the primary caretaker of an infant recently. I don't want to downplay your software and your effort but my wife and I raised two wonderful baby girls without any app tracking how many diapers we changed or how many p…

Hm. I should have said “why it might matter” because not everyone ends up with a baby surprisingly uninterested in nursing…

Re: When tracking your period lets companies track you

#130

Post by MandieD »

bregma wrote: post #48
MandieD wrote: post #15

Validates my decision to self-host and donate to Baby Buddy: https://github.com/babybuddy/babybuddy I figured all those “free” (and possibly even the paid) baby apps were likely doing all sorts of shady things with that data. One thing for me to use a period/fertility tracker for myself - quite another to throw my child’s data up to god knows who for god knows what ends long before he could possibly consent. If you d…

We raised three children without tracking data on their metabolic processes. We nursed them when they were hungry, changed them when they were moist or stinky, and comforted them when they were upset. The only thing we really measured is how little sleep we got. They have all grown into fine adults. I have observed that one of the biggest causes of bad relationships between parents and their children -- and subsequen…

Anyone who actually knows me would laugh their ass off at the thought of me being a controlling, micromanaging parent: I’m far too absent-minded. They’re more worried about me forgetting to pick him up from daycare or that he’s in the car. These days, the only consumption monitoring I do is to make sure he doesn’t swallow something that is not food.

Data collection from the beginning helped ensure that I wasn’t inadvertently starving my kid when he was shockingly uninterested in nursing, and I wanted to remind people that there’s another way to accomplish that than the class of terrible, privacy-invading apps heavily marketed to women about aspects of our lives we would otherwise consider the details of to be private.

I’m sorry if you had overly-controlling parents. I happily didn’t, beyond normal Texas Baptist notions of morality, and see my main job right now as keeping him from getting severely injured before he’s old enough to understand heat, gravity and chocking hazards.

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