As I sit in the corner of my bedroom in the wee hours of the morning nursing my baby, I have one hand free. With an iPhone in that hand, I can do almost anything! Being a mom of a newborn is different than the last time I did it; that was the old days — 2007. 2011 smart-phone-enabled mothering is mind-blowingly awesome and I want to tell you why I love it:
- Twitter. I can keep up with all matter of news overnight as well as commiserate with other sleepless moms (hashtag #zombiemoms). Not so lonely anymore.
- Amazon app. Get this free app and sign up for Amazon Mom to get deals on baby stuff and free-two day shipping on nearly anything with one thumb click.
- Baby tracker. Using Baby Connect ($4.99), I can track feeding and sleep patterns like the nerd I am. An extra geeky feature syncs this data to my husband’s phone and our iPad. Eat Sleep is also pretty good for $0.
- Text messages. No need to yell to the other end of the house. When I text I need a hand, my husband comes quickly.
- Camera. When I’m stuck under a sleeping floppy baby, I can take pictures. Lots of pictures.
Super baby close-up
If you have an Android or Blackberry, your world is probably just as fabulous, but I don’t know the details. Share your best uses for a smart phone as a mom of a newborn and I’ll try your suggestions out tonight!
I’m an Android user, and when my son was born in January, I loved using my Droid phone to read books on my Kindle app one-handed, in his otherwise dark room while I was feeding him. It made those middle-of-the-night feedings much more palatable!
I loved: podcasts for those long walks with a baby who will only sleep in the stroller (or drives in the car). Recording milestones on twitter and tagging them “#babybook”. (For example: “Baby smiled for first time today! #babybook”)
I’m also quite a FourSquare addict so if my mission is to get out of the house with my baby, FourSquare lets me measure my success. But not so much in the wee hours.
I have organized a moms group and will update where we are meeting from my iPhone, usually while nursing
I keep up with friends on Facebook, text my husband, family & friends, take pictures and videos, and read the scriptures and books. Thank goodness for smartphones while nursing!!
Netflix on demand on my iPhone totally kept me from going crazy when Max was a newborn. We have only 1 TV in our house and it is in the basement living space and our bedroom is 2 floors up. Needless to say, I was not going to be trucking up and down those stairs to watch TV, so I was able to just lounge in our bed with Max, sleeping as needed and watching movies and TV shows on Netflix. Total lifesaver.
Love Baby Connect. Facebook, Pinterest, update my mom group calendar, email, etc. Love that I have an iPad during this child! No falling asleep while bf like with the last child!
glad to know I am not the only one that sends text to my husband from the other side of the house
How could I forget all the “TV” I watch remotely? Netflix streaming, Hulu Plus, YouTube and the remote thing my husband set up so I can watch our DVDs from afar. Life-changing, I tell ya!
@Kelly, I’m glad to know I’m not the only one texting my husband from the other room. My house is quite small for this behavior. But who wants to wake or startle a baby? Not I.
I like to play words with friends. Makes me feel like I’m not completely brain dead. Sometimes it’s the only slightly intellectual thing I do all day.
Playing Words with Friends with my mom friends, who are also up at all hours, reminds me that I’m not alone. And using Instapaper lets me read the news…eventually.
In addition to entertainment while nursing, I’m also using BabyConnect and taking oh so many photos…
Not yet mentioned, my iPhone is making my life easier with 1.) noise machine apps! My guy got fussy at the grocery store yesterday, so I turned on some ocean waves, and combined with the motion of the cart, he was out in seconds. 2.) Skype & FaceTime so I can share this sweet boy with family without having to sit down in front of the computer.
#zombiemoms tonight!
This is how I started reading blogs. Countless hours with nursing baby in my lap. Also, words with friends, US Weekly app for keeping up with celebrity gossip, and I did most of my Christmas shopping on the amazon app (I had a November baby). During labor my midwife had to pry my iPhone from my hands because I couldn’t stop timing my contractions with the Labor Mate App.
I Aldo text my husband from my daughters room.
She’s almost two now and still nursing a little. She asks, “where’s mama’s phone?” when we sit down to nurse!
These are all great tips, thanks for sharing! I use the iPod app on my iphone to play lullabies. My current top pick is called “Help Your Baby Sleep with Soft Gentle Piano Melodies.” It really works!
Also love the Reeder app for keeping up with my fave blogs (like this one!) and Evernote for updating my lists of baby classes, baby reference articles, and to-do lists. Remember the Milk is a great app for making shopping lists (you can sync it on your Mac.) The Snapfish app makes it easy to upload baby pics to share (grandma like to have actual prints for her photo album)
I guess my iPhone has been more useful than i realized!
I downloaded the Nook app & read books during my baby’s feeding sessions–but only after nearly dropping the actual Nook on his head. Don’t know how you iPad moms are doing it! The smaller, the better for me!
The day I went into labor was the day I realized my true appreciation for my smart phone and had my first “there has to be an app for that” moment. It was 10 days before my due date and contractions started slowly (I wasn’t even sure what contractions should feel like!). So while my husband napped lazily on the couch that Sunday evening because he thought there was no way this baby was coming early, I thought, “there has got to be a app to time these things, keeping track is exhausting!”. And there was. It made having contractions 10 days early, and with our first child, less overwhelming (and even a little fun – especially since they didn’t start taking my breath away until after I was at the hospital!). Then tracking feedings/naps/diapers. Who knew?! My iPhone was/still is always in hand!
With my first child, I had an extra hand to play with my Iphone while I nursed. With my second child, I had an Ipad to play with. It makes the 20-30 minute feedings go by so much faster and I’m productive while doing so, checking twitter, facebook, news, mail, etc.
I used to play Sudoku and email while nursing. I wish I had know then how fabulous the ibook app is (I don’t even know if my phone actually had that then – it was back in the olden days of the iphone 1), but it’s the best! Download a book on a whim and no need for a reading light!
I got my Iphone 3GS a couple of months before I had my baby in May last year, and I have to say that it was the one thing that stopped me from going completely batty in the 10 months that I breast-fed my son. Email, Twitter, iBooks and most important, the NYTimes app. I could devour news, feel connected to the rest of humanity, and know that I hadn’t lost all cognitive skills to ‘baby brain’. It’s too bad that the NYTimes app is a paid one now and the free version is very limited and just super buggy. Bummer!
Well, here I am being the killjoy. I have to say I really dislike how popular it is to be “connected” while you’re nursing. How about being connected to your baby? Studying their face that is going to change in just a few weeks or even days. Getting those newborn smells and coos in. When the little one passes out on your lap, then facebook away. There are so many distractions constantly in life, television, phone calls, loud flashy toys, even just being out and about. I, for one, took advantage of the bonding time that nursing can be.
Tabasco–
Thanks for your input. I would assume most of us super moms know how to balance and manage our time between our babies and ourselves without fully neglecting one or the other.
When my first son was born, 2005, I watched TV on a TV during the nighttime and daytime feeding sessions.
When my second son was born, 2007, I read blogs on my feed reader at night and watched real TV or Heroes on the laptop at other times.
So… I guess neither of them got my undivided attention either.
I love text messaging my husband in the house or the garage if I need something. Sometimes I even just call him. Love the cute baby picture.
Used the Kindle app on my iPhone quite a bit while my baby was a newborn. But whenever we travel, we use the free Simply Noise app as white noise while she sleeps — works like magic and is quite effective at blocking out hotel noises. Complete lifesaver!
Use my iphone too to page my husband when I’m “stuck” and need something I can’t get. Prefer to read a book to help pass the time when nursing late at night, but also love podcasts, reading blogs and Facebook.
Noticing lots of QR Codes on ads directed at Moms. I guess advertisers have it right that Moms love their phones and are never far from it. You need a free scan app to use the QR codes but it seems like Moms are in tune with downloading apps.
[...] You already know I love my iPhone. [...]