Parenting app

Parenting app

While you have come to this page it is important that at the end of this information you get to learn what parenting apps that parents may know about and to know what recommended apps they may download and make use of.

And while the objectives of this post is that readers are taken through on;

Why are parenting apps important?;

The suitable and very good parenting app;

The suitable and best co-parenting app.

Why are parenting apps important; 

It is an interesting thing to know that many things in today’s world is going digital to making things easier for people and being able to relate and work with. Parenting as you may see it is not being left out when applying some important roles into function and through the use and help of the apps being developed for parents for handling day to day parenting situations. They however, are apps that have been developed for parents and many parents that will surely be keen to know them, find them, download and start applying them. In the following section of this, you will be led to those suitable and good apps for parenting.

The suitable and very good parenting app;

Before that, when as at 2018, based on findings, the Google app store was queried with some search terms of 18 types. At the end, the found parenting apps were 16 on mobile app rating scale. Following the result, the initial free apps on the first search of 16 apps were in review and all the 16 reviewed apps were freely available to use/download to the public on Google play. Of all these, too 13 apps were accessible on iOS (Apple store) platform. The apps in were eligible coming with privacy policy that advertisement contained in the half of the apps. 

Under this too, when considering for suitableness and those good parenting apps – the eligible apps – those apps that covers aspects of parenting are – six in categories – which covers, the tracking apps, information apps, photo-sharing apps, sleeping-aid apps and miscellaneous apps. In giving details of each, the tracking app is developed for parents to be able to track babies’ based on the activities of the baby, such as feeding, voiding and bowel movements. The tracking apps gives or make parents to be able to access information in terms of baby’s/infant’s feeding direction, first-aid etc. Photo-sharing apps give parents the access to share infant’s moments and other activities with their loved ones. The sleeping-aid apps, is basically developed in the presented form of white noise, sleeping inducing features such as the lullabies to soothe babies and induce infants to sleep. And miscellaneous apps. 

 With this parents are to select apps with features that matter most for their needs based and following those app features that agrees with their needs and many health care centers and professionals can recommend apps based on their needs.

The tracking apps, 

information apps, 

photo-sharing apps, 

sleeping-aid apps 

and miscellaneous apps.

The tracking apps; as the name suggests can help parents monitor and understand their babies’ basic activity patterns. It also makes parenting easier. Upon this many researchers documented many other features that a tracking apps has that makes it suitable and appealing to parents and such are – customization of app option that can blend to parent’s needs and suitable styles such that parent can have the to add or remove/delete an activity logs and choice to choose from data entries – data editing, automated and/or manual entries. Notification features/option such as a reminder features that notify the parent on when there is the need to feed and change the baby’s nappy and clothes. Sync feature which aids parent to collaborate baby’s care and be able to see in the real-time updates reported by the caregivers handling the baby.  Caregivers could be nannies, grandparents, etc. in the absent of parents. Other features or options are – data export sharing option and support chat rooms and group forums. 

Based on ratings, these are suitable apps to download in the tracking apps (Notice: the listed apps below are only given based on their ratings); 

“Your Baby Tracker”, “Child Growth Tracker”, “My Medela Breastfeeding Companion”, of all these apps in this category, “child growth tracker is simple to use app and that provides multiple scales to monitor child’s growth. 

“Your Baby Tracker”, 

“Child Growth Tracker”, 

“My Medela Breastfeeding Companion”,

Information apps; as the name suggest, these apps are designed to aid parents, and first time parents who may be anxious about what to expect – regarding child development and other related questions that may arise about infant or baby care approach – more especially for newly inexperienced/parents that are not really prepared for their newborn. However, many parents have one time or the other have used the internet severally and apps searching for immediate and brief but yet detailed answer or response to their current concerns. Through this, researchers have been able to get some patterns or characteristics that parents from time to time are looking for in an information category app.

The reviews of the suitable parenting apps included five information apps – which include – 

“Baby Centre”, “WebMD Baby”, “Baby and Child First Aid”, “Baby Centre”, “Info for Nursing Mum”, and “the Babybrains”. Of all these parenting apps in this category, the “Baby and Child First Aid” app scores the highest on functionality, easy to use, navigation and providing first aid information from a credible source, The Red Cross. While the info for Nursing Mum app is mainly developed and designed to focus breastfeeding mothers and which can be needful for new parents in the first few months. In getting to compare the this “Nursing Mum app” and “Baby and Child First Aid” from the latter app, it covers emergency info for children and parents which can be needed in many years after. The “Baby Centre” and “WebMD Baby” apps give and submit various information that deals with parenting concern and other added functionalities such as a book on baby. Babybrains app on these information apps is designed to the activities that facilitates, improve/enhance baby’s brain development.  

“Baby Centre”, 

“WebMD Baby”, 

“Baby and Child First Aid”, 

“Baby Centre”, 

“Info for Nursing Mum”, 

and “the Babybrains”.

Sleeping-aid apps; following this category of apps, is by bringing up the info that should assist parents to     get selecting the best suitable parenting apps for “white noises” and “lullabies” if they might consider this. In reference to that, the essential options/features have been noted with the sleeping-aid apps that parents might consider as beneficial to them such as – the lullabies and white noises, timer, fade out, combination of different sounds, add or record parent’s own sound and lullaby etc. all these under the personalization option. Other options get to include – the work offline option in the absent of the internet. 

The suitable sleeping-aid apps have been included here to be apps – which include – “Baby Sleep-White Noise”, “White Noise Baby Sleep Sounds”, “Don’t Cry My Baby (Lullaby)”, off all these 3 rated apps, the most rated app (highly) – was the “Don’t Cry My Baby (Lullaby)”. As this app has been designed and developed to include more lullabies and less white noises as compared to the two. Other features in the app included car sounds, animal and instruments that can be used as distractions. 

“Baby Sleep-White Noise”, 

“White Noise Baby Sleep Sounds”, 

“Don’t Cry My Baby (Lullaby)”

Photo sharing apps; with this comes so interesting and exiting when parents want to share happy times and moments with their loved ones, and that which allows parents in such moments get to extend and even intensify the joy of the moments hence facilitating this as an adjustment to their new roles. And while it has been reported by many researchers that parents get using social media to reach love one, others and to showcase parenting experience – even validating their parenting activities and statuses – in this manner, sharing identifiable information that can include photos may pose the risk of privacy and security in adopting to this kind of trends. As a result of this, numbers of app developers have developed photo sharing apps to replace or serve as alternative to help parents post and share photos on public media. These apps also help parents to post and share photos among relatives and friends they can trust sharing across their babies’ photos. In this part, there are two apps of this category in review are – 

1. First Smile – Baby Photo & 

2. Scrapbook App, and FamilyAlbum – Easy Photo & Video sharing   

Out of these apps, FamilyAlbum – Easy Photo & Video sharing app was rated highly in this category due to the highest score on function. 

Miscellaneous apps category; Miscellaneous apps category include apps that are not subsets of the categories already given above. The listed apps in this category were;

1. ASL Dictionary for Baby Lite

2. Parenting Tips for Children 

3. Baby Weaning and Recipes and;

4. Family by Lori Petro   

Following those apps, the highest rated app in miscellaneous app category was ASL Dictionary for Baby Lite compared to other apps in this category. 

The suitable and best co-parenting app; 

Depending on your needs, use or family needs and wants. So here are some of the co-parenting apps as many of them offer free basic versions or even freemium/ trial periods (and paid versions) – as you can try out just a few of them in the list below. 

OurFamilyWizard

Coparently

FamCal

Cozi

WeParent

Custody Connection

Parentship

2Houses