Helpful Apps For Parents

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“There’s an app for that.”

How many times have you heard those words? From fitness to food and finance to Foxtel, there’s a smartphone app for just about everything. There’s no doubt that mums are busy, so having a bit of help at your fingertips could make things a little easier. Here are some awesome apps that parents might find helpful.

Callout

Callout helps you easily find and connect with local businesses and service providers, such as plumbers, gardeners, pool cleaners, electricians – even personal trainers. Not only can you find services, but you can liaise with them about appointments, quotes and payment using only your phone. No more endless emails, phone calls or texts. Callout is free to download and use and is available from the App store under Calloutapp and you can read more about it here .



Jugglr

Jugglr is the ultimate in helpful apps for mums. It connects a network of local, trusted mums who are willing to help each other in some way. Each mum offers their services in exchange for another service or money. You can find mums, read their story and connect if they have a service you require. Perhaps you need someone to pick up and drop off the kids at school and you can offer babysitting in exchange? Perhaps you can make a neat birthday cake in return for a bit of housework. The app is designed to make like a little easier for mums and as of late August, there are 2,000 mums signed up.



Trolleysaver

'Junk mail' is something that some people hate and throw straight in the bin. Not me. I love it! Unfortunately I don't get it thanks to the remnants of a very old ‘no junk mail, thank you’ sign on my letter box. I have reduced this sign to just ‘thank you’ but still get bypassed.

Lucky for me, there is Trolleysaver, a free app designed to let thrifty buyers know where to get the best bargains of the week. The only drawback is that it currently applies only to Coles and Woolworths and not Aldi and IGA, so it’s really only useful if you do the bulk of your shopping at either of those. Still, it’s great for comparing specials on things you might frequently buy, like dairy, meat and baby products.



Baby tracker

This is a free app for new mums. The idea is to track your baby’s daily habits in those early days and months. You can enter sleep times over a 24 hour period, feeding times, including expressing time and how long baby fed for, and how much expressed milk or formula bub had at any given time. You can also track nappy changes if you so desire, which I did not. Personally, I found it really useful for identifying patterns in my daughter’s routine, tracking her feeds and for when I had to provide information to our child health nurse.

The obvious drawback is forgetting to log the information, thus defeating the purpose. Some days just remembering your own name is difficult with a newborn. Another drawback is relying on the information a bit too much, and not being flexible when baby’s routines changes.



Baby Sparks

This development app is a great source of age-appropriate activities for babies aged 0 to 12 months that can help your baby learn fine motor and cognitive skills. There are lots of different activities available with video demonstrations. While the app is free to download, to access the entire catalogue of 350 activities, you will need to purchase an activity package.



Cheap Parking

Having a baby means going to appointments. Lots of appointments. All over town. This app finds the best priced parking in Perth so that you aren’t stung with hefty parking fees or fines. Simply enter the location you are going to and the day and time and Cheap Parking provides a list of the cheapest parking in the area and an estimate of the cost (it's advisable to double check the fees when you arrive at the carpark.) You can find early bird parking, evening or weekend flat rates and parking close to the airport. It even gives you a photo of the carpark so you know you're at the right place. The app is free to download.

[IMAGE37261 Who doesn’t love cheap parking?]

There really is an app for just about everything, and parenting is no different, so take advantage of all that technology can offer.

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