How to set a feeding reminder for your baby on iPhone (and why a fixed clock is not the whole answer)

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) both recommend responsive feeding, which means feeding when your baby shows hunger cues rather than strictly by the clock. A reminder is therefore a safety net for a busy or exhausted household, not a schedule your baby has to follow.

There is one common exception. Some doctors ask parents to wake a very sleepy newborn for feeds, for example in the early days or while the baby is regaining birth weight. If your care team has told you that, ask them the exact interval and for how long, and use it as your reminder time. Do not set one on your own because an article or an app said so.

The Clock app on iPhone has a Timer and Alarms, and Siri can start a timer (“Hey Siri, set a timer for three hours”). It is free and needs nothing to be installed.

The catch is that the timer counts from when you set it, not from when the baby finished eating. If you set it at the start of a feed that runs 40 minutes, it rings 40 minutes early, and if the baby wakes hungry sooner, you have to remember to reset it. A repeating alarm is worse for this: it rings at fixed times whether or not a feed just happened.

The better design is a reminder that restarts every time a feed is logged. That is how the feed reminder in Baton works. It is part of Baton Plus, and it is off until you turn it on.

1. 1Open More, then Reminders, and tap “Allow notifications” if iOS has not asked yet. If you declined earlier, iOS keeps the choice in Settings, then Notifications, then Baton.
2. 2Turn on “Feed reminder”. If you do not have Plus, the switch opens the Plus screen instead.
3. 3Under “Remind me every”, choose a number of hours. It starts at 3 hours and goes from 1 to 8 hours in steps of half an hour.
4. 4Log feeds as usual. Baton counts from the end of the last breastfeed or bottle you logged (or its start time, if it has no end) and plans one notification for that many hours later: “It has been 3 hours since Mia's last feed”, with the baby's name. Tapping it opens Baton on the Bottle entry screen.

Each time you log a new feed, the pending reminder is recalculated, so it always counts from the latest one.

Know these limits before you rely on it:

• It only counts breastfeeds and bottles. Pumping, solids and notes do not restart it.
• It does nothing until a feed has been logged, and if the time is already past, no reminder is planned. If you forget to log a feed, the reminder counts from an older one.
• It is one notification, not a repeating alarm. If you do not log a feed, it does not nag again.
• Reminders you set up yourself can fire at night. The automatic ones (for example the nap reminder) never fire during your night-mode hours.
• iOS decides how notifications are shown. A Focus mode or silent mode can hide or mute it, so test it once, with a short interval, before you rely on it at night.
• It is a nudge, not a judgement of how often your baby should eat. Baton does not tell you what interval is right.

Notifications are scheduled locally on each iPhone, with nothing sent through a server, and the setting is stored on that phone. So your partner turns on the reminder on their own phone, and it is Plus on that phone too unless they have Plus through Family Sharing. The logged feeds are shared through your iCloud accounts, so each phone counts from the latest feed either parent logged, once it has synced.

If you would rather look than be nudged, Baton's Today screen is free and shows the last feed and how long ago it was, and the Lock Screen and Home Screen widgets show the same. There is also an optional, free morning summary that sends last night's feeds, sleep and diapers at a time you choose.

Ask your pediatrician or midwife how often your baby should feed at their age, whether you should wake them for feeds, and what to do if your baby is very sleepy at feeds, refuses feeds or has fewer wet diapers than usual. Call them without waiting for the next reminder if you are worried. In an emergency, call your local emergency number.