Best Apps for New Parents
Your life has just changed for the better, but change can still be quite overwhelming no matter how great it is. With your new child safe in your arms, you can expect new challenges and new rewards every day moving forward. There are several great apps worth checking out that will help you maximize this experience of growing together as a family.
Glow specializes in a suite of apps aimed at new, soon-to-be, and aspiring moms. Glow offers four apps including the main Glow app, which includes features like a fertility calendar and daily health recommendations. Once you’ve given birth, the free Glow Baby app makes tracking your new bundle of joy’s needs simpler.
Available for free in the App Store and Google Play, Glow Baby promises full support for your child’s first five years of life. Glow Baby allows you to keep track of everything from food intake to bowel movements to sleep schedules. You can make notes about each milestone and pair them with pictures and convert key information into PDF summaries that you can share with your doctor.
Better still, Glow Baby is linkable across multiple devices. That means you can connect with your partner so that you can share important information and monitor your baby’s progress together. You’ll also have access to a growing userbase as well as daily articles and insights.
Whether you’re raising a baby on your own or with the help of a family community, it’s not uncommon to feel alone. Peanut looks to give new moms additional support by building a community of mothers and women so that you can discuss topics ranging from fertility to menopause.
With Peanut, you can join groups discussing topics related to motherhood and your general interests. When you want to talk about how you’re feeling or the new show you just binged, you’ll find kindred spirits on Peanut. The app also links you up with new moms in your area so you can get to know one another over coffee and arrange future playdates.
You can download Peanut for free on iPhone® and Android devices by visiting the app’s website.
Johnson’s is one of the most trusted names for baby products, and it’s carrying that cachet over into the digital world. The Johnson’s Bedtime baby sleep app, available for free on Google Play and the App Store, promises better sleep within a week.
The Johnson’s Bedtime app works on a three-step routine to improve your baby’s sleep schedule: a warm bath, gentle massage, and quiet time. You can use the app to track your newborn’s sleep patterns and get a Sleepscore, which tells you how much rest they’re getting and how they’re developing.
You can also leverage the Johnson’s Bedtime app to ask for advice from sleep experts and create a sleep music mix. Not only will these features help your baby get the rest they need — they can help you get a better night’s sleep, too.
When you’re a new parent, your baby soaks up a lot of your care, attention, and energy. And while that’s important, it’s every bit as important that you continue to take care of yourself physically and emotionally. For these needs, Headspace is emerging as a must for parents.
Headspace touts the benefits of meditation for parents as including a better sense of calm, greater compassion, and being more present in the moment. The people behind the app have commissioned studies showing that using the app has a noticeable improvement on these qualities and allows parents to teach kids qualities like resilience and offer a low-stress learning environment.
Headspace includes a massive library of meditation courses as well as fitness and yoga offerings, music, and sleep sounds. The app is free to try for 14 days; after your trial, you’ll be billed $69.99 plus applicable taxes.
These are just some of the great apps for new moms that you can find on your smartphone. For more ideas, talk to other parents you know and trade recommendations. Because it well and truly takes a village to raise a child — especially in an increasingly digital world.