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Whether you are following baby led weaning or starting with purees, introducing foods to your infant’s diet can be an incredibly entertaining and challenging time. I still remember how thrilled I was to discover the sleeved shirt bib. But this can also be an anxious and even scary milestone for families with a history of food allergies or a child with an allergy already identified.

In earlier posts, I’ve shared information about our journey with food allergies, which we discovered, mostly, over a period of a year. Sometimes the allergy would present quickly and be easy to identify, but others, like his cinnamon allergy, only appeared after he’d been eating oatmeal with cinnamon daily for over a month. This one was more difficult to identify since we’d assumed we were in the clear and moved on to other new foods. We had to go back and eliminate foods one at a time, trying to remember which were the last ones we’d introduced or if there was the possibility that he’d eaten something contaminated by one of his known allergens.

Once allergies are in the picture, keeping track of new foods and food combinations, symptoms, and medical information can become a lot to juggle, let alone having to communicate this info to other care givers. It becomes even more difficult to keep track of when you have multiple babysitters and alternate caregivers that you rely on. It takes a village to raise a child, after all.

So I was really intrigued when I was contacted on behalf of Nutricia North America, the makers of allergy-safe formula Neocate, to take a look at their new app – Neocate Footsteps. The app gives parents a tool to support them as they navigate food introductions and help take some of the guess work out of identifying food allergies and sensitivities. It also helps parents communicate this information with others, so you can easily update a babysitter or daycare worker about your child’s needs or specifics of an event that needs special monitoring for, or create a report to bring with you to a doctor’s visit.

I’ve used the app for several days now, and appreciated how easy it was to get started. After installing you’re asked to create a profile for your child and give details about known allergens, medications, their doctor, and any additional notes you need to add. You can easily track details for multiple children from the same app.

How Neocate Footsteps Supports Your In Your Food Allergy Journey

Once you’ve created an allergy card profile for your child, you can get started with event tracking. Neocate Footsteps gives you the ability to track things like diaper changes, bottles/nursing sessions, meals, sleep time, mood fluctuations, and symptoms all in one visual display. This means you can easily identify correlations between feedings and changes in mood/diaper consistency and also monitor your child’s feeding and sleeping intervals so you can anticipate their needs later in the day, or share the details with another caregiver.

And, because a picture is worth a thousand words, you have the ability to upload a photo as you record a symptom or diaper event so that you have that visual ready and available to share with a doctor, or for caregivers to share with a parent.

Adding new events is easy to do and can be done in as little as three taps. You also have the option to add additional details for events that you feel were more significant and worth noting. At any point you can easily create a report or export your allergy card to send to another care giver, doctor, or teacher, saving you the hassle of having to write it out each time and giving you confidence that you haven’t forgotten some small but important detail.

Neocate Footsteps helps more than just parents

Not just parents, but also caregivers and daycare and school staff can benefit from the tracking options that Neocate Footsteps offers. I wish I’d had a tool like this to get updates from my son’s daycare when he was small rather than having to chase after them at the end of the day to get details from them. I can also see its relevance for school aged children and having the ability to share an organized and up-to-date summary of my son’s allergies at the press of a button.

The app features additional content to help parents new to allergies, including tips and resources prepared by medical professionals and allergy-friendly recipes that you can filter by common allergens, with the ability to share your favourites with your friends and family.

It also includes a Neocate information section that includes detailed Neocate product information andthe ability to find a pharmacy near you that carries Neocate products. It also provides information on available coupons and reimbursement and coverage options, connecting you with experts who will help you explore all options for finding coverage for you to be able to afford Neocate for your child.

How to Download it

The Neocate Footsteps app is currently available for iOS and is available as a free download from the US iTunes store. Not in the US? You can change the region of your iTunes account so don’t worry. It is part of the family of Neocate Footsteps resources library, supporting families on their food allergy journey.

Disclaimer: Although this is a sponsored post, the views expressed are entirely my own and consists of my honest feedback of the product at the time of my writing this. I cannot guarantee the state of the product at a future date or that the details of this content piece will remain accurate. Please always verify ingredients and free-from status of any food product yourself before eating it. Do not rely on things you read online to make this decision. For more information, or if you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

This post was included in Mom Life Mondays