Useful mobile apps for little one’s first year of life

August 28, 2023 /

Cristien Natal

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Benji was born at the start of lockdown. 2 weeks after giving birth to him, we were in lockdown and I was at lost to what I could do with him. I wanted to play with him but I didn’t know how. I also was worrying about milestones (and in hindsight, I should worry less and I wish I soaked up all the newborn phase and enjoyed it!). I had this irrational pressure that if he’s not crawling by x month, I must be doing something wrong. I wish I trusted myself and himself more that in his own time really does mean his own time.

Although there are things you do have to listen to your gut feelings and push to get support and help from, like Benji’s speech therapy journey, reflux and dairy allergy reaction. I am glad I listened to my gut feelings.

As cliche as it sounds, your mum gut feeling is usually right. And even if you are not, by getting your little ones checked – you are going to get that peace of mind and reassurance they’ll be ok.

Going back to milestones, there are also stages when your little ones go through teething or developmental leaps or both at the same time. One day you’ll find your baby may be more clingy or crying a bit more and these could be the leaps stages! How would you know – there are books and apps to help you navigate all these.

Here are my top picks for apps (and books) I have found useful for Benji’s first year of life and will be using again for our baby number 2

👶Milestones and leaps

The Wonder of the Weeks

Our friend highly recommended The Wonder of the Weeks book.

We got ourselves the app instead as it was easier for my husband and I to be on the same page as I was able to input Benji’s DOB and guess date – it works out which week is leap week and we added those dates to our shared family calendar app.

Link to the site to download the app:

The Wonder Weeks App

Baby Sparks – Development app

There were no baby classes or sensory classes during lockdown so I searched online for apps that I could use and follow to help me do activities with Benji when he was a few weeks old – I started the activities when he was 8 weeks old.

‎BabySparks – Development App

Here is a video of us doing the the activities together when he was 10 weeks old.

There are alternatives to this app such as Kinedu. I think it’s a matter of preference and cost but I can definitely recommend this one and found it pretty user friendly.

🤱Breastfeeding

Huckleberry

https://huckleberrycare.com/

I used the free plan and only really used it to track sleep and feed to see Benji’s sleeping and feeding pattern. One thing I’d like to note though is that I don’t enjoy timing breastfeeding. I learnt that we want to make sure baby finishes their feed because they’ve emptied the breast. We need to learn to see their cues. Someone’s 5 minutes of breastfeeding is completely different than yours.

Someone’s let down could be faster than yours so they get to “fatty” milk earlier and baby can efficient empty mum’s breast quicker. Some babies can latch on for awhile but as long as your breast is getting emptied, you can be reassured they’re feeding well. I will write more about our breastfeeding journey in this blog.

But the app is good to see pattern.

Serene breastfeeding app

I can highly recommend the above app but unfortunately it’s not available on the App Store anymore! I really enjoyed the simple interface. It really was just a simple breastfeeding timer to time left and right feed. I mainly used it to remind myself which side did baby last fed! Some people would say you’d know immediately which side is fuller but I didn’t have that as sometimes Benji fell asleep mid feed on the second breast and I always forget which side it was. I am going to blame it on baby brain but I’m sure it was the lack of sleep and exhaustion.

🍽Baby Led Weaning (Introducing baby to food)

The recommended age to introduce solids to baby is usually when they’re 6 months old but I know for some parents they want to start early at 4 months. Benji started weaning at 5.5 months old not by choice but by health visitor’s and doctor’s recommendations as he had reflux and they were hoping introducing solids would help.

We decided to do baby led weaning where we introduced various foods in both blended and solid form. So for example, he had avocado slices (big enough he could hold it) and blended avocado with breast milk. Eventually after a couple of weeks trying different veg, we use this app to give us inspiration on what meals we can cook for us and Benji! We tend to keep our meals the same and have family meals together.

Baby Led Kitchen

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/baby-led-kitchen/id1433931519

What I love about this app is that there’s no yearly subscription. It’s a one off purchase and quite affordable given that you get new recipes added to the app.