I always love seeing new tech that really benefits parents, and super smart newborn apps are one of those awesome advances I wish had been around 12 years ago when I was getting ready to welcome my first baby. Just out yesterday, the Baby Bundle app is the latest entry, a one stop parenting app that helps new parents in just about every way–except changing diapers. (That job’s always tough to outsource.)
Baby Bundle tracks all those basic newborn activities — eating, sleeping, diaper changes — in a clean, attractive interface, all right from your iPhone or iPad. Which I imagine most new parents probably have nearby anyway. But it does a lot more.
The app functions as a handy guide for what to expect at upcoming pediatrician appointments, kind of like the “your baby week to week” emails so many of us get. It’s a vaccination tracker and a breastfeeding timer. Plus, it’s the perfect place to input height and weight updates so all the info is in one place. No more scribbled numbers on random scraps of paper, yay!
Baby Bundle also functions as a rudimentary baby book, tracking those baby “firsts” that are supposed to go in a proper baby book, but don’t always make it in there. (Raising my hand guiltily, especially on behalf of my second and third babies.) The nice thing about this app is that it makes it easy to quickly check off those milestones as they happen, and then add them to a bound baby book later — and you won’t even have to guess at the date. From your baby’s first smile to the first messy bite of solid food or his first (hopefully painless) haircut, all of those big inaugural accomplishments have a place to go.
Because Baby Bundle was developed in partnership with pediatrician and mom Dr. Jen Trachtenberg, I can confidently refer to the health reference and baby care guides in the app. Paging through them briefly, I found both guides to be helpful and non-judgy, though I still give the side-eye to any suggestion that a bath can help calm a crying baby. But hey, maybe your baby won’t shriek like a banshee in water as all of mine did.
So how is such a great app free? Well, there is one add-on purchase and it’s a good one: the ability to turn Baby Bundle into a digital baby monitor too. We’ve already gushed over how video baby monitors are actually super awesome, so I love that Baby Bundle has incorporated this feature too.
I could wax on about how back in my day, I had to scrawl diaper change details in a looseleaf notebook and commit to my imperfect memory just which side I nursed on last; but I’d rather just be super happy that today’s new parents have such an awesome new choice among newborn apps to help make those newborn weeks a little easier on everybody. Even if it doesn’t help you get extra sleep.
Download the new newborn app, Baby Bundle app for iOS — it’s free!
I’m so sad. I really wanted to get this app, but it’s not available to download in the United states. Any idea when or if it will be available in the U.S.?
I had this app and used it for two years. With an update since the app is no longer supported, I lost two years worth of journaling and have been unsuccessful in contacting the developers to retrieve my information. If anyone can help me out, I would greatly appreciate it!