I feel like I have a love-hate relationship with apps. They are obviously pertinent to your functionality this day and age but I also hate having so many on my phone and in my Cloud because it gives me anxiety and mirrors the feeling of having dirty clothes laying all over your bedroom floor. I also despise the little red circle in the corner of the App Store app that tells you how many apps need updating. It drives me nuts and appears every single day with a minimum of 10 apps needing updates daily. I. Hate. It.
My point is… I download apps with INTENTION. I don’t just get apps to get them. I do my research, read the reviews and seriously evaluate if the app is going to better my everyday life and functionality. Having too many is counterproductive. Save your self the time researching and decision-making and take it from me. The apps described below are amazing and have brought a wealth of knowledge to me during a time where I feel helpless and overwhelmed.
PREGNANCY
This is the app I used for tracking weekly updates and progress during my pregnancy. Every week is so different in pregnancy and this app breaks down everything going on with your body and baby in an easy-to-digest format. It offers a selection of articles relevant to the weekly stage of pregnancy that you’re currently experiencing, and it’s also visually appealing. The app has fun images comparing your baby to the size of fruits and vegetables, as well as an impressive, interactive graphic depicting how baby is growing inside of your body at each weekly stage.
Even better, it doesn’t stop after your baby is born. The app continues to provide information and articles for the first year of baby’s life, also on a weekly basis. I highly recommend this app!
Our baby registry was through Babylist because it didn’t restrict you to registering items through one retail store. It also pulled pricing from multiple retail stores so that the buyer could compare and choose to purchase through the store with the most competitive price. I simply bookmarked the “Add to Babylist” button so that when I was shopping online for baby items we would need, all I had to do was click the button in my Bookmarks Bar and it would add the product to my registry. Babylist also acts as its own e-commerce store and you can purchase items and return them directly through the website. If all of that wasn’t enough, I found their “Best Of” articles so helpful when researching which products would be the best fit for our family. For example, they will research, test and determine the 10 Best High Chairs of 2019, tell you what to look for in a high chair and why you need one, and then label each high chair under a specific category such as:
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“Best Practical High Chair”
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“The Portable High Chair”
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“The Built-to-Grow High Chair”
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“Best Budget High Chair”
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“The Easy-to-Clean High Chair”
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“Most Foldable High Chair”
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Etc…
They tell you why they love it, what to keep in mind and what Babylist parents are saying about it! Such a useful resource and the best registry out there!
Oh boy did I need this when I went into labor. Full Term is an app to help you keep track of your contractions so you can determine how close your contractions are, and therefore, leave for the hospital at an “appropriate”, for lack of a better word, time. I’m not going to lie I stopped keeping track after the pain became more intense and I needed to be on all fours to manage it. But I also had my midwife and doula talking to me on the phone and they knew exactly where I was at with my contractions and when I needed to leave. Stay tuned for a blog post on my midwife and doula experience.
BABY
This app is a MUST. There is so much to keep track of with baby’s feeding, sleeping and diaper schedules that there’s no way you can remember it all amidst the ever so simple task of trying to get your shit together. I exclusively breastfed Cannon for the first five months and this app helped me keep track of how long he was nursing for––babies need to nurse for 30 minutes to an hour each feeding––and which breast I left off on so I knew which one to start with for the next feeding. So much freaking work I kid you not. I didn’t use this app for sleeping until we started him on an actual sleeping schedule at around 3-4 months. When he was a newborn I just let him nap whenever and for however long he wanted. In terms of wet and dirty diapers, I only felt it was important to track these in the first couple of months just to ensure everything was regular.
I sure do love my portable Marpac Rohm sound machine, but not going to lie, its charge does not hold for that long. So when we’re out and about at a friend’s house or running errands on the weekends, I need my backup sound machine, which is Spotify on my phone. I’ve linked my favorite white noise playlist above!
Babies go through these amazing, smiley, super happy phases, and then these non-stop crying, nothing makes them happy phases that seem so mysterious and unexplainable. Well, this app does just that. With The WonderWeeks, you can anticipate the fussy times to come with baby and it explains why it’s happening. Typically babies get fussy when they’re going through a leap, a growth spurt or sudden change in the body. There are ten leaps over the first 75 weeks of baby’s life and every leap is explained in detail. Super helpful and so cool to know what’s going on with baby as they grow so rapidly in their first year of life.
If you’re more of a reader, all this info is packed into a book! Order it here:
The WonderWeeks Book
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PRODUCTS
We chose the Nanit for our baby monitor. I loved that the view is directly over Cannon’s crib, it has amazing insights it provides and you don’t need Wifi to be able to check out what’s going on in the nursery; you can check in anytime and from anywhere! We were in Cabo and I could open my app without Wifi and see Cannon in real time. Amazing. When we’re home, I use an iPad with the app so that it doesn’t drain my phone battery.
Our best friend Nemo so graciously gifted us the best invention ever that is known as the SNOO, by Happiest Baby. The SNOO is a bassinet that syncs up to an app and is completely controllable with your phone. When you turn it on, it rocks your baby in four different stages with the sound machine to accompany each stage. As baby gets fussier, it increases from level one up to level four, where the rocking gets stronger and the sound gets louder. This freaking machine can HEAR your baby because it reacts to baby’s movement and cries. It’s absolutely insane and it WORKS. When Cannon was a newborn and he would cry at night even after being fed, burped and changed, I would let him cry until the SNOO would get to level 4, and then boom, silence. Cannon would fall asleep instantly. Life-changing. It’s definitely an investment but now they have a rental program, which is great, but in my honest opinion, if you’re going to have multiple kids, just buy it; it will pay off in the end.
With the amount of dirty diapers friends and family were telling me I’d change, I wanted to avoid the cushion and cloth combo for the changing table and get something that was much easier to clean. I was between the Keekaroo and the Hatch Baby. Both are easy to clean but I absolutely love the features that the Hatch Baby comes with. It also syncs up to an app and when connected, the Hatch Baby is a scale and weighs your baby! As doctor appointments become less and less as Cannon gets older, I love that I have a scale in his nursery that I can weigh him with. Knowing this info also helps with buying the right size diapers and clothes. The app also has a baby tracker for feedings, diaper changes and naps, but I prefer Baby Tracker for that.
NOT APPS
Cara, a neonatal nurse and mom of four, is local to Arizona but has blown up on social media because of rave reviews about her “Will I Ever Sleep Again?” class for parents with newborn babies. You can take the class either in person or remotely online, which is so great, but not many people talk about her blog!! Cara has so much free information and resources through her blog alone and it’s been my saving grace for sleep schedules after the three month old mark. Cara is a baby whisperer and her blog has a wealth of information beyond the curriculum of Will I Ever Sleep Again? Every schedule we’ve implemented has been dead on and works perfectly for Cannon and for us. Highly recommend bookmarking this sucka.
This book was written by Genevieve Howland, a childbirth educator and breastfeeding advocate, alongside Maura. certified nurse midwife. Genevieve also created The Mama Natural website and blog. She packed a ton of her knowledge into this book that covers each week in pregnancy up to birth and breastfeeding. It’s a more natural-minded book, which was very important to me because I wanted to be as natural-minded as possible throughout my pregnancy. I don’t really read much (not proud of this at all), but this is a book I read cover to cover. It offers descriptions of what’s going on with baby and your body during each week, a to-do list of things to check off before baby arrives, natural recipes to fuel your body and prep it for delivery, and so much more. It was legit my bible during pregnancy. I had sticky notes all over it and I always left it out on my coffee table so it was within reach. If you want to go the natural route––not just for delivery––this book is a must.
If you have any apps that have changed your life, not just in motherhood, please share with a comment below! I would love to know what’s enhancing your life and if I need to jump on the bandwagon!
