Tracking Problems

Our sons both have feeding tube which obviously means feeding issues. Getting enough calories is one small part of tube feeding. We also have to make sure our sons have all their nutritional needs met, as well. And that part is a pain! After asking on my board on Facebook for tubies who use a blended diet, I have the answer.

I downloaded the Cronometer app on my iPhone, entered my sons information, and off I went. Now, if you have multiple people to follow you will need to create two accounts. I simply made two gmail accounts that were VERY similar and all I have to do is make the very simple change on the login page and I am in the other son's account. Right now you can't track multiple people. I hope they will change that eventually.

There are a few screens at the simple touch of the screen. With one touch you can add a new food. You can either type in the name of the item or scan the barcode. You will see every food, their calorie content, and how much that your child ate through the day.

Once you have entered things like their food intake, biometrics, etc, you  can click on "Trends" to see nutritional and biometric reports for any time frame you want. It defaults to the previous 7 days, but changing that setting takes seconds.

You can also touch "Macros" and see a quick synopsis of calories, fats, carbs, etc.

Last, and my favorite part, you can click on "Targets" and get a detailed breakdown of every nutritional need your child has. This enables you to make recipes that are tailored to get all of their nutrients each day, lets you follow trends to see where there are deficits, and makes sure you aren't getting TOO much of something that might have negative effects.

You can also add in foods that the huge database doesn't contain. So far I have only had to do this with two items and both were smaller brand organic baby food pouches. But, once I enter the information I never have to again as I can scan the barcode of the package and it will pull up what I entered before.

I can't recommend the Cronometer app enough. Just check it out, you won't be disappointed.