Lola’s Magic Cube is a very nice puzzle app starring Lola the panda, possibly best known from the app “Lola’s Alphabet Train.” Here, help Lola put her magic puzzle cube back together after her silly monkey friend used Lola’s magic wand to mix up all the cubes which fit together to make up these puzzles. Each puzzle is made up of an image of Lola doing various fun things, and is bright and colorful and fun to look at. Versions of this app are available for both iPhone and iPad.

Much like the puzzle cube my son has, each puzzle in this series comes with cubes which must be arranged in correct order to make up these puzzles, sometime needing rotation so that they are correct side up as well. There are three difficulty levels, ranging from 2 x 2 to 4 x 4 pieces. It is nice that one can tap on a reference picture that can also be displayed over the puzzle that one is completing, thus simplifying the completion of these puzzles, a very helpful tool.

I like this puzzle app, as there are many puzzles to choose from, each starring Lola herself. The addition of rotation adds a new element not always seen in puzzle apps, and I really appreciate the option to look at the reference picture for help. Kids from three years and up will enjoy this activity; even I as an adult took my time on the harder section, but not in a way that was frustrating. Kids who love puzzle apps or pandas will enjoy this puzzle app.

By Age Range, By App Feature, Just For Fun, Pregnancy, Preschool, Primary School, Reviews

As soon as parents hear their baby’s first loud cry when it comes into this world, they check to make sure their new son or daughter has ten toes and ten fingers and is healthy. The next action is taking pictures–if the video camera is not already running. While the newborn is getting checked up by the doctor, all the phone calls go out to family members, close friends and people at work. The proud parents would notify the world, if they could.

Many parents also start baby books, promising to religiously keep up with all the necessary newborn and toddler information and special milestones. What they don’t realize, unless they already have the joy of another child, is the amount of time it takes to care for a baby and that they will be sleep deprived for a long, long time.

The Baby Book app makes it much easier for parents to record special moments in their infant’s first year and immediately send them out to friends through e-mail or social media options, such as Facebook.
With this app, there is no need for an extra camera. Parents can use their iPhone camera to capture photos for the Baby Book. They also have the option of uploading existing pictures and videos into the app. Since I had my video camera and digital camera with me most of the time during my sons’ first years, this would have made life much easier than pasting pictures into my print baby book. I confess, neither of my son’s baby books was completed…

The Baby Book app gets you started with special milestones—“first birthday,” ”first crawl,” “first laugh,” “first walk,” “first word” and those dreaded “vaccinations” when the baby is crying and so is the parent! With each milestone, parents can add photos and videos. If you want to add other milestones, it’s easy. In fact, I would have immediately added “first picture” to my milestones for that moment of my children’s arrival. This allows you to easily add memories as your child gets older.

Another nice addition is being able to type in a comment about each memorable event. This helps the sleep-deprived parents remember exactly what did happen when their infant became a toddler with those first shaky steps.

The best, best thing about this app is that it goes with you wherever you are. Your iPhone is attached to you at all times, right? Instead of opening up your wallet and showing everyone thousands of pictures, you can just show all these photos and videos on your iPhone, iPod, or iPad.

By Age Range, By App Feature, For Parents, Pregnancy, Reviews

Grow With Me is an interesting app which may be helpful to parents, especially those with a newborn as this app has been designed to log much of the information new parents feel compelled to keep such as data involving feedings and diapers, info given at well-baby visits as well as keeping a working schedule for vaccinations. Birth announcements can be created, and info can also be Facebooked and tweeted as well.

When our son was born, he had a hard time gaining his birth weight back within the first two weeks, so we needed to keep a detailed account of how much he nursed as well as how many diapers he used in a given day. The need to keep such detailed accounts, down to left breast and right breast, written by hand in a tiny flowchart provided by the pediatrician compounded the overwhelmingness we felt as new parents. I wish this app had been available to us; it would have saved us a lot of energy and stress. I really like that all you need to do is select “breast” and press a stopwatch of sorts when one starts and finishes, with the information now ready to be emailed in preparation for a printout to show the doctor. Options include bottle and solid feeding as well. The same goes for the ease in which you can document wet vs. soiled diapers as well as baby’s sleep schedule.

I appreciate that this app is not just useful to new parents, but any family can use this app when a family member – child or not – needs to keep detailed information about symptoms of a sickness or medications needed, plus more. I find the calendar to remember appointments helpful, as is the record keeper for vaccines.

The most important thing that stuck me about this app is the ease of use, including sharing this information with one’s doctor. The one thing I find missing is a password option to keep the information safe, some of which may be of a personal nature, be it from a stolen iPhone, a nosy family member who may have access to the device but whom you don’t want sharing in this infomation, to older children, for whom it may be best not knowing the details of their illnesses. All in all, I think this app would be very helpful to parents of both infants as well as older children.

By Age Range, By App Feature, For Parents, Health, Pregnancy, Reviews

“Your Pregnancy Week By Week” is an application designed to give both basic info and to aid in keeping others informed about your pregnancy. I did like the fact that once you add your dates, this app will keep count of what week you are in and give you some info week to week about the changes your baby is undergoing, and there is a calendar function that could be useful. There is also a blog which allows you to social network and a “Baby Alert” feature that lets you notify a list of contacts when you enter the hospital.

I did have some problems with the information section of this app. The info section is divided into topics. Each topic is illustrated by a photograph, and there are times that the text, (which is white) scrolls over a light section of the image, making it hard to read. The topics were both oddly arranged and chosen, and I also found myself saying “yeah…but” while reading much of the information, sometimes being confused, and sometimes disagreeing with what I was reading. The interface of this app in general was less than intuitive.

Ladies who are very invested in keeping friends and family up-to-date in their pregnancy may enjoy this app. I also like the fact that this app is pro-breast feeding.

By Age Range, By App Feature, For Parents, Health, Pregnancy, Reviews

Are you the kind of prenatal patient who likes to be a step ahead of the doctors, showing off how much you actually know better than they do? Have you been carefully drafting your birthing plan, reading up on the pitfalls of all of the prenatal, labor, delivery and postnatal interventions so you are prepared to argue against them in a quest for the perfect birthing experience? Then “A Practical Guide to Managing Paediatric Problems on the Postnatal Ward” is for you!

OK, kidding aside. This app is not intended for patients but for doctors, nurses and midwives. It contains a plethora of data and tools for dealing with every manner of postnatal issue, from an Apgar Score calculator to a Weight Converter. An ebook is included with detailed overviews of the newborn exam, abnormal findings, and clinical problems. Included video and audio clips show examples as well.

If you are a doctor, nurse, or midwife, I would certainly hope you would have internalized the information contained within this app and that your hospital would have supplied you with the requisite tools for calculating things like Apgar scores and phototherapy requirements by the time you meet a woman in labor. If you are a medical student or midwife apprentice, this app may be useful to you in your studies.

If you are a prenatal patient, educate yourself by all means, but please relax, enjoy your birthing experience, however it turns out, and leave the medicine to the medical practitioners.

By Age Range, By App Feature, For Parents, Health, Pregnancy, Reviews

This pricey pregnancy app packs a wallop in terms of content and utility- it includes virtually everything a novice prego needs to track, record, and plan for each unfolding detail of the miracle of life growing within. The mom-to-be sets up a profile which includes the name and sex of the baby (I Don’t Know is an option), as well as a due date. The My Baby section features a weekly photo-realistic, computer-generated image illustrating fetal appearance, complete with text descriptions of key aspects of development. Several of the images include 3D rotation functionality, allowing mommy to turn and spin baby to view from all angles with the flick of a finger.

The Doctor Says section provides detailed textual overview of development and tips for self-care for the given week of pregnancy. An organizer section is also included, featuring an M.D Visit Planner, To Do list, Newborn Essentials shopping list, and, of course, the inevitable Hospital Bag packing list (do people really pack these bags??).

Possibly the niftiest component of the app is the suite of tools included- a weight tracker (much slicker than the Excel spreadsheet I used), a kick counter, and contraction timer. The kick counter in particular I would have found useful during pregnancy: just hit start and touch the kick button every time that little bundle of joy elbows you in the ribs. When done you have a nice dated report of kicks for the given time interval. Doc will be proud.

The app integrates a great deal of functionality for the pregnant mom into a single clean and streamlined interface. If I were to have another child I would definitely use it.

By Age Range, By App Feature, For Parents, Health, Pregnancy, Reviews