Four Ways to Track Your Baby Without Touching the App

Sometimes you can't reach your phone. The baby just settled, you're mid-feed, or your hands are covered in something you'd rather not think about. Nestling is designed for one-handed use, but there are situations where even that is too much.

So we added four more ways to log — starting with voice commands that work out of the box, through to integrations for parents who happen to be technical.

1. Siri

Say things like:

The entry appears in your timeline, syncs to your partner's phone, and shows up in your trends — same as tapping it manually.

Works from your lock screen, Apple Watch, or across the room. You can also add these as Shortcuts for the Home Screen or the Action Button on newer iPhones.

2. Alexa

If you have Alexa speakers around the house, you can use them to log entries too. It takes a bit more setup than Siri — you deploy a small piece of code to your own AWS account. About 15 minutes if you follow the instructions.

Once it's set up, you can say:

It understands both "nappy" and "diaper", and both "wee" and "pee". You can also track nursing sessions with start, stop, and switch-side commands, log solids by name ("log sweet potato"), and ask when the last feed, sleep, or nappy was.

Full source code and deploy instructions are on the Nestling GitHub page.

Why self-hosted?

Publishing it as a public skill would route your data through our servers. Self-hosting means the data goes straight from Alexa to your account. You also control the timezone and can update whenever you want.

3. Claude, ChatGPT, and other chatbots

If you already use Claude or ChatGPT, you can connect them to your Nestling data using something called MCP (Model Context Protocol). It gives the chatbot access to your actual entries — sleep, feeds, nappies — so it can answer questions with real numbers instead of generic advice.

For example, instead of "babies this age typically sleep 12–16 hours", Claude could tell you "over the past week, your baby averaged 13.2 hours of total sleep per day — Tuesday and Thursday were a bit lower."

What it can do

• Read sleep, feed, and nappy history — with date ranges and details
• Check active timers — "Is there a sleep timer running?"
• Log new entries — sleep, feeds (breast or bottle), nappies
• List your babies — if you're tracking more than one

It can read your data and create new entries, but cannot edit or delete anything. Your phone stays the source of truth.

Setting it up

You'll need your API token from the Nestling app (Settings → Data → API Token for AI Access) and a runtime called Bun. Then it's a few lines in your Claude Desktop config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "nestling": {
      "command": "bunx",
      "args": ["nestling-ts", "mcp"],
      "env": {
        "NESTLING_API_TOKEN": "your-token-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Full instructions on the GitHub page. Works with Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, and anything else that supports MCP.

4. Command line

If you already have a terminal open most of the day, the Nestling CLI lets you view history and log entries without switching apps.

# Log in with your API token
nestling login

# See your babies
nestling babies

# Check recent sleep history
nestling sleep

# Log a nap right now
nestling log sleep --start "14:30" --end "15:45"

# Log a bottle
nestling log feed --type bottle --amount 150 --unit ml

# Log a nappy
nestling log nappy --type wet

The CLI is part of the same nestling-ts package. Install it with Bun:

bun install -g nestling-ts
nestling login

It stores your token locally and remembers your selected baby across sessions. If you've got multiple babies, it'll ask you which one to use.

Which one should you use?

Start with Siri — it's already there. If you have Alexa speakers, the skill is worth the 15-minute setup. The MCP server and CLI are there for parents who happen to use those tools already.

All four write to the same account. Everything syncs to the app, shows up in your trends, and is visible to your partner.

Getting your API token

For Alexa, the MCP server, and the CLI, you'll need an API token from the app. Here's how:

1. Open Nestling on your iPhone
2. Go to Settings → Data → API Token for AI Access
3. Tap to generate your token
4. Copy it and paste it where needed

The token lets these tools read your entries and log new ones. It cannot update or delete anything — that stays on your phone.

Privacy and security

Your API token is your key — treat it like a password. The Alexa skill runs on your own AWS account, the MCP server runs on your own machine, and the CLI stores your token in a local config file. Your data doesn't route through our infrastructure beyond the encrypted database.

Row Level Security means your token can only access your own data. All source code is open on GitHub.