Parenting is hard, but one of the advantages of raising children in today’s day and age is that we have access to resources like never before. The internet is full of helpful (and not so helpful) parenting advice and there is a plethora of apps out there to help you raise your kids. In the Dashing family there’s a few apps we use, so I wanted to put together a list of Dashing Dad’s Best Parenting Apps.
Have a suggestion for an app you use? Let me know in the comments and I’ll add it to the list!
Peekaboo Moments
Admittedly, for day-to-day picture taking we mostly use the iPhone Photo app. We love how we can share photos easily with Clara’s grandparents, whether they’re in town or not. That being said, sorting pictures and finding just the right ones from each of her milestones is almost impossible when your phone is full of 10,000 photos. Peekaboo Moment’s makes that easier. This free app is designed to help you create a lifetime of photo memories. Automatically sorted by your child’s age, there is unlimited storage to allow you to track all of your child’s milestones. You can keep them stored securely and even write them a letter for their future self to read.
Download now for free on iOS or on Android.
Boomerang Parental Control
While this isn’t something we need to worry about in the Dashing household just yet, we’re getting closer and closer. We have two Alexa devices and already Clara’s garbled “‘lesa” sets it off, so we’re not far from her ordering products straight to our front door.
Boomerang Parental Control was created by three dads who originally wanted to build an app to control the screen time of their kids. From those beginnings the app has bloomed into an app that keeps kids safe online. This app prevents kids from viewing pornography, violence and hateful rhetoric as well as giving parents the ability to set clear time limits on screen time without negotiation.
This app offers a free 14-day trial and is a paid subscription after that. Check it out now on iOS or on Android.
PBS Kids App
PBS has been a staple in child programming for decades. From Sesame Street and Mr.Rogers Neighborhood to Daniel Tiger and more, PBS is still going strong. With the free PBS Kids app, your kids can watch videos based on shows like Daniel Tiger, and can play games that help teach them early science and math skills in a fun and colourful way.
Download for free no on iOS or on Android
Ovia Parenting & Baby Tracker
Being a new parent is overwhelming. Ovia Parenting & Baby Tracker does its best to help with that. Some of it’s key features include:
- Log your baby’s feedings, dirty diapers and daily sleep
- Learn about child development and parenting tips with more than 1000 articles
- Add multiple kids and receive personalized updates based on their age
- Invite friends/family to follow for updates, photos, videos etc
- View all of your saved memories in one family calendar
- Ask questions anonymously in a community of parents and caregivers
AllTrails
Ok, so this app isn’t SPECIFICALLY for parenting, but I still like to use it to find new places to explore in and around our part of the world. AllTrails is pretty straight forward. It’s a curated collection of trail guides so you can pick out some awesome places to hike and explore wherever, whenever. It was through AllTrails that I discovered Brown-Lowery Provincial Park, which resulted in one of our favourite hikes of last summer.
Baby Names
As I mentioned in my last post, we’re excited to be welcoming a baby boy into our family this coming summer. Obviously once you find you you’re pregnant, coming up with a name becomes a priority. Full disclosure – we are on the STRUGGLE bus coming up with a boys name. Our go-to app for looking up names is the Baby Names app where you can see the details of very name, including origin, meaning, and popularity. You can look up trends, focus on a single letter and share your favourites.
Check it out for free now on iOS and Android.
Smart Baby Sorter
On our recent trip to Palm Desert, one of Clara’s favourite games for her iPad while on the plane was the Smart Baby Sorter. It’s not a complex app, but its simplicity is great for kids. Smart Baby Sorter offers twelve games that have toddlers take shapes and colours and sort them on screen. It has lots of dings and celebration graphics when they get it right and for Clara her face lit up as she exclaimed “I did it!” after each level.
Download for free on iOS and Android.
Best of Parenting
The Best of Parenting app is consistently ranked at or near the top of the parenting apps in the various app stores and for a good reason. It’s designed to tackle most parenting challenges effectively. It offers easy-to-use tools and daily tips selected from the best parenting methods worldwide.
Download for free on iOS and Android.
Art of Manliness
Again, this app isn’t SPECIFICALLY a parenting app, but it has a lot of information related directly or indirectly to parenting. It’s also one of the few apps dedicated directly to men. In their own words Art of Manliness is:
The Art of Manliness is a one-stop resource for actionable advice that covers every aspect of a man’s life: character, career, relationships, fitness, style, skills, and much more. Through weekly podcasts and articles, AoM tackles subjects from the philosophical and serious to the practical and fun. AoM differentiates itself from other men’s lifestyle media outlets in providing content that is intelligent, thoughtful, thorough, eminently useful, and clickbait-free.
The Art of Manliness is also The Strenuous Life — an online/offline program that helps men directly implement the habits, disciplines, and skills we cover on AoM into their lives. Like a scouting program for grown men, TSL offers a structure that facilitates a man’s growth in body, mind, and spirit.
The mission of AoM is to get men not only reading and listening to our content, but ultimately implementing what they learn into their lives; through our articles, podcasts, books, and programs, AoM aims to help men, as Theodore Roosevelt put it, “Get action.” We seek to help men grow up well, reach their potential, become better friends, mentors, husbands, fathers, and citizens, and live a life of eudamonia — skill, flourishing, excellence, and virtue.
Check it out on iOS and Android.
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