Feature Idea: Track Elimination Communication

[Dodoooh]

I love using Baby Buddy for keeping up with my baby's routine, but I've got a feature idea I think could be super useful: adding Elimination Communication (EC) as an activity we can track.

For those of us trying out EC (helping our babies use the toilet instead of just relying on diapers), it would be awesome to log when we're doing it, if it was a success, and any notes about how it went. It's all about catching those cues and it would be great to see patterns over time in the app.

Could we add something simple for this? Like just a time stamp, success yes/no, and a spot for notes? It would really help parents who are into EC and make Baby Buddy even cooler.

Thanks for considering it! You guys rock.

Cheers,
Dodoooh

[cdubz]

Thanks for the kind words and for sharing your idea!

I don't have any experience with EC so I would need a little more guidance on what kind of interface elements would be useful here. And just generally what the process looks like.

My key question is: do you think you could achieve a degree of what you are looking for using tags or notes? What drawbacks would there be? And if not what would be missing/what could be gained by adding direct support for this?

[Dodoooh]

Hey @cdubz

Really appreciate you being open to my idea! EC is all about catching those moments when the baby signals they need to go pooping / pee, trying to communicate for bathroom breaks instead of always using diapers.

In very simple terms, the process looks like this:

1. Watch your baby for any signs they need to pee or poop (like squirming or making certain faces).
2. Learn when they usually need to go, often after meals or naps.
3. Help them over a toilet or potty when you think they need to go, using a special sound or gesture to encourage them.
4. Practice this together, getting better at understanding each other's signals over time.

Tags or notes might work, but sorting through them to spot EC patterns, especially separating successes from attempts, could get messy.

Could we possibly clone the diaper change feature for EC, with the same functionalities plus a simple “Success” or “Attempt” checkbox? This setup would really help us see how it’s going and catch the baby’s signals better.

Thanks for considering this further! Happy to provide more details if needed.

Cheers!

[MrApplejuice]

I found this an interesting idea. It would have actually helped us as well with some other medical-tracking issues we experienced. I think rather than adding yet-another type of tracking item, the problem can be generalized to an "event chain":

event <- delayed confirmation event

The most generic database construct to allow for this kind of tracking is to allow for "event chaining". So, for example, allow a notes-entry to related to a feeding-entry.

This could be done by adding a nullable foreign-key relation to the "confirmable" events so that notes can be attached to any other event, including notes themselves. I know that this is kind of messy with the current database setup because all events are their own table entry, but it would work.

The note would then become more a kind of an "annotation feature" for other events, but also retain its current function of storing unstructured comments. If an entry allowing all foreign key relations to be null, this would be a "loose" note. In addition, chaining of note-based annotations would become an option where you can track multiple things. Example:

Feeding <- note1 <- note2

or also

Feeding <- note1 + Feeding <- note2

all become possible. A directed acyclic graph structure. I find this kind of neat, though we should keep in mind that traversing a graph structure in a database can be expensive.

Once this is implemented, and for the specific purpose of "Track Elimination Communication" (I have never heard this myself), the user interface could be specialized: If one creates a note relating to another event, different templates could be made available to allow easy entry of "success/failure" notes...

This would be my idea. In summary:

1. Make it possible that notes relate to other events
2. Provide templates to track specific information as part of the notes-text

I think this could be a neat solution.

[cdubz]

Does this build upon or replace to #217? Or is unrelated?

[Dodoooh]

Does this build upon or replace to #217? Or is unrelated?

#217 sounds great too, I haven't seen this one.
Since for me EC is something quite normal, and very similar to diaper changing, I personally would of course see it as a separate activity.

[MrApplejuice]

Hey... quick update from my side: I unfortunately got ill... will report back in more detail later. #217 did not get a lot of love over the past years, or am I mistaken? I think my proposal could maybe considered a nice intermediate step for #217. Generic templates for notes would very much fit into the picture for this, I think. Those then ultimately would need to be matched to a data model for #217... but #217 is away bigger anyways because it also would require a massive data migration, and probably a new api frontend with a backwards compatibility view or something.

Again, I will report back when I am healthy again!