Night-feed pushes and the cost of a ‘helpful’ reminder
Feeding and sleep apps often schedule reminders that look caring in a dashboard and exhausting in a dark bedroom.
Retention charts reward apps that “re-engage.” Parents living on ninety-minute sleep cycles experience those same pings as accusations. In one feeding-reminder engagement, uninstall spikes clustered twenty minutes after a default 3 a.m. tip.
What to measure instead of open rate alone
Track reminder dismissals within ten seconds, quiet-hours overrides, and support tickets mentioning sleep. Those signals often move before uninstalls show up in a weekly cohort.
A calmer experiment
Shift educational tips to the first daytime open after a logged night session. Keep emergency-style alerts (medication, agreed co-parent deadlines) rare and explicitly consented. Your open rate may fall; one-star “nagging” language usually falls faster.
Workshop fit
Teams arguing about cadence benefit from a Caregiver Journey Workshop before another A/B test ships.