There is an abundance of parenting information out there and it can get overwhelming if you don’t know where to begin. For me, having apps readily available on my phone to notify me of key milestones is the most convenient solution. Here are four helpful and free apps Will and I used to guide us through the various stages of pregnancy and after birth.

Best app for weekly pregnancy tracking

What to Expect (iOS | Android)

The WTE app was our most used one during pregnancy and we still use it now. After you enter your baby’s due date, it’ll update you with personalized development info about your body and baby, symptoms relevant to your stage in pregnancy, and other articles. It’ll also tell you roughly how big your baby is in comparison to fruits and veggies, movie props, or 90s nostalgia items.

After birth, the app provides weekly updates on our baby’s development with tips and valuable resources.

Best baby registry app

Since we weren’t able to host a baby shower due to the COVID-19 situation, it was important for us to find a baby registry site that was both user-friendly and allowed our friends and family to browse and ship items with ease. We needed something easy to use and password-protected so our mailing address would only show to those who reserved a gift. I spent a couple of hours comparing MyRegistry and BabyList, including building actual registries on both to see which one worked for us.

We ended up using BabyList due to a number of reasons.

What’s great about both registry sites

• Universal, so you can add items from any store.

• Easy bookmark button on your browser to clip items as you shop.

• Registry items can be categorized (books, clothing, etc.).

• “Notes” section to add comments, colour, size, etc. to each wish.

• Guest views for both are user-friendly.

• Gift tracker to see which gifts have been purchased so you don’t receive duplicates.

Why I ultimately chose BabyList (iOS | Android)

• You can add one alternate store to each item to give your guests the opportunity to shop around.

• The guest view is better. Guests can easily sort and clearly see your “Must Have” items thanks to the pink sticker it adds to your items.

• Better user experience. You can drag and drop items, quickly edit, and view items clearly by category. (MyRegistry was super tedious to organize and this part of the process made me delete my account immediately due to frustration.)

• The app is great and very easy-to-use. I also spent a lot of time browsing their gift suggestions and reading their tips and articles.

• For US residents, BabyList will send you a free baby welcome box if you create a registry.

Best contraction timer app

I downloaded multiple apps to play around with before our due date. Many of the apps have other functionalities built in, but all I wanted was a simple app without the annoying pop-up ads. Contraction Timer & Counter 9m (iOS | Android) does the job. It tracks the duration and frequency of your contractions, which you’ll need to share with the nurse when you call the hospital. You can also rate the intensity level of each contraction.

Best baby activity tracker app

BabyTime (iOS | Android) is an amazing baby activity logging app and in my opinion, THE best! I spent a long time researching and must’ve downloaded 8 to 10 apps to “use” (this was while I was in my third trimester), so you guys have to trust me on this one. Many of the other apps bombarded me with ads or kept pushing me to pay for certain features. (Totally cool if you’re open to paying, but I wanted to use a free app.) While BabyTime does have ads and pay-to-use features, they’re not in your face.

What we like about BabyTime:

• You can add another caregiver to the profile so you can both log activities. Any additional caregivers (up to 5) will need to be paid for.

• Can be used on both iOS and Android.

• There are a lot of activities you can track with this app including breastfeeding, feeding pumped milk, feeding formula, diapers (including options for the poo colour), sleep (day and night), bath time, and more. Each activity is colour coded for easy reference.

• There’s a section for you to track baby’s weekly patterns in a pie chart, bar graph, or timeline. I personally love this feature and look at it every day.

• Another section breaks down each activity into trend graphs. This can be sorted by day, week, or month. I find this part especially useful to reference when we’re at the paediatrician’s. She’d ask about average the number of diapers and feedings, which is all laid out for us in these graphs.

• The baby diary area lets you input weight, height, and head circumference. It then adds your stats to a growth curve graph comparing your baby against WHO’s child growth standards. (This part should be taken with a grain of salt, as growth rates vary by child.) You can also add notes and photos to the diary to track progress.

• Many users share their baby diaries publicly within the app, so you can scroll through the feed and compare milestones with babies around your age.

• There are several settings you can adjust to your personal liking including what time range you consider as “night sleep” (ours is 9pm to 8am), how to calculate feeding times (our doctors have us tracking from the start of the feed), and more.

• You can export all the beautiful stats into a spreadsheet if you, like me, like to play with data. : )