Being a new parent is tough. You’ve spent months preparing for your little one’s arrival and getting more and more excited with each passing day. Then, when they finally arrive, the feeling of unconditional love and joy is overwhelming. That is of course, until the fear hits you!
Suddenly, you have a tiny, helpless infant to look after and you realize you have no clue what you’re doing. No amount of baby books can prepare you for the overwhelming sense of responsibility you feel. It’s scary, no terrifying, to think you’re in charge of keeping baby safe, happy and healthy. However, the great thing about being a new parent today is that you’re never alone.
Thanks to technology, surviving baby’s first year is easier than ever before. There’s a huge amount of help available at your fingertips. Smartphone and tablet apps available for both iOS and Android are especially useful and can really help to minimize the stress and worry that’s all part of being a new parent.
If you’re feeling the pressure, or you simply want to be prepared, grab your iPhone or Android and get ready! Below you’ll discover 10 great apps to help you survive baby’s first year.
Table of Contents
1. Baby Connect – $4.99
This fantastic app is definitely worth the one-off $4.99 charge. It enables you to track all kinds of essential information to help you discover just how well your little one is doing. You can use it to monitor how often baby feeds, how much they’re growing, how many naps they take and when they received or are due to receive their vaccinations.
What’s great about the app, is the ability to share the information being tracked with others. So, if baby has numerous caregivers, they’ll easily be able to see when your little one should be napping and feeding for example.
2. Eat Sleep – Free
If you’re on a budget, this free basic baby tracker app is an ideal option. As well as giving you the opportunity to track sleep and feeding times, the app also has a more unique feature – diaper monitoring. Why would you need to monitor your baby’s diapers? Well, it can really help you to check whether your little one is eating enough.
Weight gain is one of the more important things new parents need to keep on top of. It can be difficult to know whether baby is getting enough food, so monitoring how many diapers they go through in a day for example, can really help you to see whether they’re getting the right amount of food.
3. My Baby Today – Free
Another great free app, My Baby Today provides you with a totally personalized guide for your little one’s first year. It comes with a few unique features such as checklists to help you see how your baby is progressing. It’s most useful feature however, is its huge database of advice and information. There’s a sleep guide which allows you to track, as well as learn more about various infant sleep-related problems. There’s also a feeding section which lets you track and learn more about both formula and breast feeding.
To top it off, there’s even a question and answer section which provides answers to the most common baby-related questions. With this app, you’ll get everything you need to put your mind at rest during baby’s first year.
4. Baby Soother – Free
One of the main challenges you’ll face during baby’s first year, is sleep. Getting your little one into a sleep routine is extremely difficult and you’re going to face a LOT of sleepless nights. Sleep deprivation is no fun to deal with, so anything that helps you and baby get more sleep is definitely appreciated! That’s where this great Baby Soother app comes in useful.
The app can play numerous sounds to help baby drift off. These include sounds of the ocean, the vacuum cleaner, white noise and the sound of a hairdryer. But hang on, won’t this keep baby awake? Actually, it won’t.
It’s a common misconception that you have to be super quiet to avoid waking the baby. Babies are naturally used to loud noises. The womb is surprisingly loud, with some experts claiming the noise is similar to that of a lawnmower. So, the noises provided in this app are fantastic at encouraging baby to sleep. You can learn more about how white noise can help your baby sleep by clicking here.
5. The Bump – Free
Another great free app, The Bump is especially created for newborns, as well as pregnant women. It largely focuses on providing useful advice and expert written articles on everything you could possibly need to know during the first year.
Each week, you’ll find checklists which are designed to help you to keep on top of things and you can add lots of photos of your little one too.
6. Baby Monitor 3G – $3.99
This great app lets you monitor your little one while they’re asleep, or resting in their crib. You will need to have at least one other smartphone or laptop in order to use it however. Simply set up the laptop or phone next to your baby, then use your own phone to monitor them.
What’s great about this app is it’s much cheaper than an actual baby monitoring device and it prevents you from constantly needing to go into the room to check on them – something that could potentially wake baby up!
You can also hear your little one with this app and what really sets it apart is its long-distance capabilities. So, even if you’re not at home, you can still check on baby without needing a Wi-Fi connection.
7. Sprout Baby – $4.99
This great app is a good all-rounder, but is mainly beneficial due to its milestone development updates. It will tell you which milestones are coming up and it also lets you record baby’s first milestones. You can even add journal entries with photos of your baby which you can come back to look at in years to come. It’s a great record-keeping app which also allows you to track numerous things such as feeding, sleep and health records.
8. Cozi Family Organizer – Free
One thing which becomes much more difficult when you’re a new parent is organization. Life suddenly becomes so much more hectic, making it difficult to remember appointments and other family commitments. The Cozi Family Organizer can really help you to keep up to date with what’s going on. You can schedule in all of your appointments and quickly see whether there are any important dates coming up.
This app also lets you track groceries, so you’ll know exactly when you need to go and more importantly, what you need to buy.
9. WebMD Baby – Free
It’s common for new parents to constantly worry about their little one. From coughs to vomiting, it’s easy to assume the worst as to what may be wrong. WebMD Baby is a fantastic resource to help put your mind at ease. It contains everything you need to know on every possible type of health problem your little one may experience. What’s more, the advice is written by experts so you know it’s reliable.
It also supplies content packages every week, which are tailored to your baby’s age. This is definitely one of the more essential apps on the list as your baby’s health is by far one of the most worrying parts of being a new parent.
10. Baby Sleep Site – Free
As sleep issues are one of the most common and difficult parts of being a new parent, it’s only right we feature more than one app to help. Baby Sleep Site is one of the best free, baby sleep aid apps you can download. It provides many different tips on getting baby to sleep, but most impressively, it provides them in accordance with your baby’s age. It also allows you to choose between the type of sleep you need help with, such as naps or actual night-time sleep.
Conclusion
So, there you have it – 10 of the best apps you can get right now to help you survive baby’s first year. Obviously, there’s hundreds of apps available, but the above cover everything you could possibly need to know and track.
Do you have your own recommendations to fellow first-time parents? Let us know below!
Wish, I knew about some of these before! Well, it isn’t too late yet since my second one is still on the way, haha.
I’ve used Baby Connect which is your first suggestion on the app list and I can only say incredible things about it. It is one of the most amazing apps I’ve used – yes, it does cost but it is worth every penny. It is literally ideal for storing and checking any sort of information about your baby – eating, sleeping and so on. I’d really highly suggested this one to all parents.
The one that I don’t see mentioned is Milk Maid. As you can tell from its name it’s about tracking how much milk the baby is drinking, how much milk you’ve pumped, you can set up reminders, look at the statistics and more. It’s only $3 and it’s amazing for the new and old parents!
I wish you had also mentioned whethere these apps are available on iOS or Andriod. I wish there were links to these apps. I am a new parent and I have not used any of these apps. I want to try some of these apps.
For example, Eat Sleep will help me check my foru months old baby’s routine. And baby Soother will help me pacify my baby when wife is away.
I am seriously amazed by this, there is nothing technology wouldn’t do in order to make life easier for man. I never conceived the thought that there are apps which would be this beneficial to new parents.
Baby Connect $4.99 is definitely worth it, by looking at all the features in the tabs on its homepage, it surely has more than enough to offer new parents in assistance of taking care of their new born babies.