Dutch maternity care leaves new parents a paper book to log feedings, diapers and sleep in. Hodierna is that book, on the phone already in your hand: feedings with a breastfeeding timer that remembers which side you started on last time, diapers, sleep, temperature, weight and growth, photos and notes. You share it with your partner or anyone else you invite, each with their own level of access.
The problem
The moments this app is used are precisely the moments an app normally fails. One hand free, because the other is holding a baby. Little light. Little patience. And frequently no signal — in a hospital basement, or at night on one bar.
An app that shows a loading spinner then is useless exactly when it is needed.
How it is built
Everything is written locally first. The database on the device is the source of truth. Every action lands instantly and a background loop syncs it to the server once a connection exists. The app is fully usable in airplane mode.
That is simpler to say than to do. Two phones syncing at the same time must not overwrite each other, so every row gets a monotonic sequence number allocated atomically in the database. Deletes are tombstones rather than real deletions — a hard delete cannot replicate, because the other parent’s phone would simply push the row back. Photos taken offline park a downscaled copy on the device and upload on reconnect.
One hand, no looking. Only the bottom third of the screen is reachable with a thumb while the other arm is occupied. That is where the actions live. Input happens in bottom sheets, with steppers instead of a keyboard that would cover half the screen.
Dark mode is the primary case, not a courtesy. Most entries are logged at night.
Why this matters for your project
Offline-first is not a luxury for an app used outside an office — by engineers, drivers, care workers, or anyone inside a building with thick walls. It is worth deciding at the start rather than retrofitting: the sync, the conflict rules and the deletes belong in the foundation, not in a layer bolted on afterwards.
Need an app that keeps working without a connection? Tell me what you need and I will think it through with you.