MommyRon started as a Mother's Day gift for my wife, Roneth.
When our son was born, Roneth committed to giving him breast milk. Her supply was low in the early weeks, not enough to keep up with how much he was eating in a day. The advice from lactation consultants was the same one every exclusively pumping mom hears: pump more often, build the supply, don't skip sessions, especially at night.
So she set alarms. Every two hours. All day. All night.
I watched her live by those alarms for weeks. She would wake up at 2 AM, then 4 AM, then 6 AM. The phone had to be on silent so the baby wouldn't wake up, which meant the alarms half-worked at best. Some nights she missed a session entirely and you could see how much it cost her, not just the lost sleep, but the worry that her supply would drop again and she'd be back to square one.
She tracked everything by hand. Each pump session in the Notes app. Each ounce written down like it was gold, because to her it was. She would count the bags in our freezer in her head, doing the math on whether today's stash would be enough to cover tomorrow's feedings. At 3 AM. With our son in her arms.
I'm a software developer. I've been building software for over six years. And I sat there watching the woman I love do all of this with a notes app and a pile of alarms, and I thought: I can fix this for her.
So I started building. Quietly. I didn't tell her at first because I wanted it to be a surprise.
I built it for Mother's Day. I called it MommyRon. Mommy Roneth.
It had to do a few specific things. It had to wake her up reliably, even on silent. That was the first feature, and it became the heart of the app: a wake alarm that plays at full volume even when the phone is silenced, because a missed 3 AM session isn't just a missed alarm, it's milk supply she might not get back. It had to count her stash automatically so she didn't have to do the math in her head at 3 AM. It had to predict her next session so she could plan around it. It had to log every ounce without making her tap through five screens to do it.
But I also wanted it to feel like her. Not like a spreadsheet. Not like a clinical baby tracker. So I added a small illustrated mascot, warm, soft, encouraging, that lives on her home screen widget. It tells her she's doing a great job. That she's a wonderful mom. That she's stronger than she thinks. The same things I tried to tell her every day, but now showing up on her phone at the exact moments she needed to hear them.
I gave it to her on Mother's Day. She was happy and proud, which is something I'll remember for a long time, because the whole point was to make sure she knew I saw how hard she was working.
She started using it the next session. Then every session after that. A few weeks later she said something I didn't expect: “There are so many other moms going through this. They need this too.”
That's when MommyRon stopped being a gift and started being an app.
A few things we decided early, and stuck to
No cloud. No accounts. No analytics.
Every pump session, every ounce, every piece of her data stayed on her phone. We built it this way because reproductive and feeding data is some of the most personal information a woman has, and we didn't want to be one more app harvesting it. When other moms started using MommyRon, we kept it that way. Their data lives on their phones. It's not on our servers, because we don't have servers. If they uninstall MommyRon, their data simply disappears with them. That's the design.
One-time purchase. Never a subscription.
The parenting app category is full of $10 to $15 monthly subscriptions, layered onto families during one of the most financially stressful seasons of their lives. We said no. MommyRon is free to download. There's one optional in-app purchase to unlock premium features, and that's it. No ads. No manipulative notifications. No pressure to come back. We want moms to use it intensely for the 6 to 18 months of their pumping journey, and then graduate from it without guilt.
Built for 3 AM.
Every screen assumes she's holding the baby, operating a pump, or running on three hours of broken sleep. Tap targets are oversized. Logging a session is two taps. Onboarding is two screens. Nothing is decorative.
About me
I'm Jomar Montuya, an independent software developer based in Baguio, in the mountains of northern Philippines. I've been building software for over six years, mostly for clients through my small agency, Medianeth, where we focus on custom software for construction, engineering, and real estate companies.
MommyRon is the first app I've built for my own family. Roneth was the first user, the lead tester, and the reason any of this exists. She's still the most thoughtful product reviewer I have.
If you're an exclusively pumping mom, or you know one, MommyRon is on the App Store. It's free to download. I hope it makes the hardest parts of your day a little easier.
And if you're reading this because you're considering MommyRon for a story or feature: thank you. We built this in our home, on top of a real experience, with as much care as we could put into it. We'd love for more moms to find it.
MommyRon is available on the App Store. Built by Jomar Montuya. Designed for Roneth, the woman who taught me what it means to be a mom.