For the last few weeks
One tap starts it. One tap ends it. That is the whole thing.
Wavesong times your contractions and shows the pattern against the rule your provider gave you, 5-1-1 or 4-1-1, with all three parts measured separately. It never tells you that you are in labor. It shows you your own numbers, so that when you make the call you already know what to say.
Wavesong is not on the App Store yet, so the first call is the list: one message, the day it opens, with the price on the first line. The contraction timer on this site is free and open right now, and it runs the same model as the app.
What it does
At 38 weeks the question is never how to run a stopwatch. It is whether what you are feeling is the thing, and whether it is time. Wavesong answers that the only honest way an app can: by measuring what you timed and holding it up against the rule you were given, part by part, and leaving the decision where it belongs.
The part that is different
5-1-1 has three numbers in it and the third one is the one that gets dropped. Contractions every five minutes, each a minute long, for a full hour. Most timers, in the App Store and in the browser, will tell you to head in after three or four good contractions. We read the code of the browser ones on 24 August 2026 and measured it: one fires after four contractions, another after three.
The leading contraction timer on the App Store has one star reviews about exactly this, written by the mothers it sent in early. One of them puts it better than we could: "the last number in a 411 or 511 contraction timing is for one hour".
So Wavesong shows all three, always, each with its real measurement next to it, and the third one sits there unmet until an hour of the pattern has actually happened. There is also a guard that is not a criterion: if nothing new has been timed for a while, the pattern reads as paused rather than met, because a rule that asks for an hour is asking for an hour that is still going.
See it work before you believe any of this
The contraction timer on this site is free, complete, and runs the same model the app runs. Tap it a few times, or load the worked example, and watch the third criterion refuse to be met until the hour is really there.
No account, no email, no upload. It works with the tab open and no signal.
Built for three in the morning
Labour tends to start at night. That is not a mood board, it is the design brief: the screen is dark by default, the numbers are set in a rounded face so they read at a glance and out of the corner of an eye, the button is big enough to hit without looking, and one slow breathing rhythm is the only thing on the screen that moves. Nothing flashes. Nothing is red.
Your data does not go anywhere
On the device
Contractions, dates and everything else live on your iPhone and in your own private iCloud. There is no Wavesong server holding your pregnancy, because there is no Wavesong account.
This website, measured
Zero cookies and zero third party requests, on every page. Not a policy sentence, a measurement, and it is one of the gates this site has to pass before it can be published.
No ads. Not one, not ever
The leading free timer in this category was serving pornographic ad creative over the timer in August 2026, with reviews to prove it. Paying for an app is what buys you not being sold to during labour.
Wavesong is not a medical device and does not give medical advice. It shows the pattern you timed against the rule you set. It never says you are in labor and it cannot rule anything out.
Call your provider or your maternity unit now, whatever the app or this site shows, if your water breaks, if you are bleeding, if you have constant severe pain with no relief between contractions, if your baby is moving less than usual, or if you are under 37 weeks and think you might be in labor.
What it costs
Wavesong is not on the App Store yet. When it opens the price will be 79.99 USD a year, which is about 1.54 a week, or 12.99 USD a week if you would rather pay that way, which works out at about 675 a year. There is no free trial and no introductory price, because the timer on this site is free and runs the same model. That is the trial.
The price is written here, in pricing.md and on the first screen of the app, on purpose. The leading app in this category runs a weekly subscription that a lot of people did not realise they had signed up to, and its reviews say so in those words. Knowing what you are paying should not be a feature.
One email, the day it opens
Wavesong is not on the App Store yet. Leave an address and you get exactly one message when it is, with the price on the first line. No newsletter, no drip, no partner offers. You can reply to that email and a person reads it.
Stored on our own server, never sold, never shared. Your IP is hashed, not kept. Nothing about your pregnancy is asked for or stored.
The rest of it
A summary for your provider
Two taps turn a session into something you can send to your midwife or read out in triage, with times, lengths and gaps in order.
Kick counts
A ten kick session with a timer and a daily trend, for the weeks before any of the contraction part matters.
The hospital bag
A pre made list you can edit, for you, the baby and whoever is coming with you, with the progress visible.
A countdown
Weeks and days, on the home screen and the lock screen, without opening anything.
Common questions
Is Wavesong available yet?
Not yet. The contraction timer on this website is live, free and complete right now, and it runs the same model. Leave your address and you get one email the day the app opens, with the price on the first line.
Is there an Android version?
No, and there is no plan for one. Wavesong is an iPhone app with an Apple Watch companion. The browser timer on this site works on any phone, including Android, because it is just a web page.
Does the app tell me when to go to the hospital?
No. It shows the pattern you timed against the rule your provider gave you, with each part measured, and it says which parts are met. The decision, and the phone call, are yours. An app that says go is an app that is practising medicine without knowing anything about you.
What if my provider gave me a different rule?
5-1-1 and 4-1-1 are both built in and you pick yours during setup or in settings. Whatever you were given, the two raw numbers Wavesong shows you, average length and average gap, are the ones you will be asked for.
Who is behind this?
Digital Nafta, an independent studio. There are no clinicians on the team, no page here is reviewed by a doctor, and we do not pretend otherwise. What we do instead is link every clinical figure on this site to a primary source you can open yourself.
Start here
- The contraction timer. Free, in your browser, same model as the app.
- The 5-1-1 rule: what the three numbers actually ask for. And why the third one is the one that gets dropped.
- When to go to the hospital in labor: the call, the drive and the timing. Too early and too late are different mistakes.
- Braxton Hicks or labor: how to tell them apart while it is happening. The test ACOG gives, and what a timer can settle.
Last checked 2026-08-24