Babies actively develop physically and emotionally from birth to a year when adapting to the world around them and obtaining the first experience. Parents must satisfy not only the infant’s physical needs (feeding, sleep, changing diapers, and so on) but psychological ones (communication, entertainment, etc.). Moms and dads need to know how to properly care for their children so as not to miss an important development stage.
International standards, numerous studies, doctors, and modern technologies are ready to help them make everything right. For example, researchers at the University of York proved the effectiveness of using parenting apps. They created BabyMind and invited new mothers to test it. Six months later, researchers found that women who used the app were better at understanding and coping with their children’s needs than other moms who didn’t use the app.
Let’s explore infant software in more detail and find out which apps will be most useful for parents. Since the development of babies occurs in three areas (physical, cognitive, and psychological), we will conveniently classify applications into these categories.
Apps for Physical Development of Babies
Physical development is one of the most significant stages in the life of a baby in the first twelve months. Over a year, a child grows by half and gains weight three-fold. A human being will never again develop at such a rapid pace. Therefore, parents and pediatricians should carefully monitor the growth rates of infants in the first 12 months. These indicators include height, weight, head circumference, chest circumference, and height-to-weight ratio.
There are special apps with which parents can easily and simply track these parameters. Moms, dads, and other caregivers will appreciate this software because it will allow them not to keep different figures in their minds and free them from having to write everything down on paper. Nesta, a UK innovation agency for social good, conducted a study and found out that parenting apps are popular among new parents and help them raise their children.
Let’s have a look at the available infant software:
Baby Care is a mobile app representing a diary of child development from the first days of life. It not only allows parents to record the baby’s physical parameters (height, weight, body temperature, head circumference, and so on) but also creates various charts. Moms and dads will be able to visually monitor the development of their son or daughter and compare these charts with the WHO ones. The application also saves data on the infant’s daily activities, vaccinations, medicines, doctor’s visits, and much more.
The app tracks a child’s physical parameters and daily activities, allowing parents to view progress on the charts. Caregivers can use this software to record the amount, duration, and method of meals (breastfeeding, formula, or solid food), sleep, milestones, baby’s mood, health, vaccines, and much more. Also, moms and dads will be able to build the growth map of the child and send this information to the pediatrician if necessary.
Applications for Cognitive Development of Infants
Children develop not only physically, but also mentally, learning to conceive, cognize, and comprehend the world around them. This is called cognitive development, which includes the establishment of all thought processes such as perception, memory, concept formation, problem-solving, imagination, and logic.
Thus, a baby studies the face of the mother, the surrounding environment, and people. Infants learn to distinguish between insiders and outsiders and show emotions when they see or hear their parents, grandparents, and other relatives. A child learns to play, talk and acquires various skills such as dressing, using cutlery, and so on. The task of parents is to help the baby adapt to our world and learn to exist here. In turn, mobile apps will help them choose the most interesting and useful tasks for their child.
With Kinedu, parents don’t have to think about what to do with their children and whether they are doing everything right. This app gives moms and dads guidance on how to bring up their children aged 0-6 years in the form of a personal development plan with evidence-based play sessions, personal coaching sessions, a baby tracker, and much more. For example, caregivers will have access to more than 450 articles about parenting and tracking the physical, cognitive, language, and socio-emotional skills of their child.
The app offers parents more than 1,300 activities that promote the proper cognitive development of children aged 0 to 2 years. All the games and activities included in BabySparks were designed by the best educators and child development experts. You can create personalized programs for your child taking into account his/her age and habits. The content is categorized and has videos to show how to do the tasks properly.
Software for Mental Development of Children
The mental health of a child begins to form in the mother’s womb. Then it actively develops after birth with every month of life. Moms and dads should know what is happening with their babies in order to properly communicate with them and contribute to their mental development. First of all, caregivers should talk a lot with infants, show and name things, sing songs, and read poetry and fairy tales to them. Thanks to this, a child will speak, form bonds with close adults, and begin to single out himself/herself as a separate personality. Obviously, the software will never replace parents, but it can significantly help them develop their babies mentally.
The software contains songs and videos that teach a baby various social-emotional skills such as self-control, responsibility, feelings, and so on. The Daniel Tiger for Parents app offers moms and dads over 20 songs and 60 video clips to discuss with their kids. Of course, infants won’t be able to talk with their parents on various topics, but they will be able to listen to funny songs, which will positively affect their mental condition.
The mobile app represents a collection of children’s fairy tales for toddlers aged 3 and up. However, parents can switch them to babies as well. The application offers users a wide pool of fairy tales and poems that can be read or listened to. Older children can watch fairy tales in the form of educational cartoons, play educational games, and perform entertaining tasks.
Building Perfect Infant Software
As we can see, apps for kids and parents are in great demand. If you are thinking about creating such software, you should carefully consider the development plan as a great idea is only half the battle. According to TechCrunch, users downloaded over 218 billion apps in 2020. The number of app downloads is expected to grow to 258 billion in 2022. You need to create a useful, functional, and beautiful product in order to stand out from the competitors and get consumers to download it.
Let’s explore the features of a successful baby development app:
Attractive UX/UI design
Research shows that 94% of app first impressions are related to design. What’s more, it only takes users 17 milliseconds to figure out if they like the design or not. Therefore, your product should be user-friendly, free from aggressive colors and fonts, a clutter of buttons, and so on.
Load Performance
Nearly 20% of users will uninstall your baby development mobile app if it’s slow. Your application should instantly respond to user actions. Also, don’t make consumers take many actions to get the information they need. Your product should have simple and clear navigation.
Native and Cross-platform Apps
Let your product run on a variety of operating systems without making users think about incompatibility issues. If your application works on Android, iOS, smartphone, tablet, and so on, you will have a chance to expand your audience. Native apps provide not only the best user experience, but also the best performance, functionality, and speed.
Support and Update
Never forget about your infant software when you release it to the market. Constantly collect user feedback to improve your product. By the way, 82% of users expect you to respond to their requests within 10 minutes. So, make sure they get answers to their questions promptly. Include a chatbot in the application that will answer the most frequent questions in the shortest possible time. As a result, the number of app downloads will increase.
Wrapping Up
The global parenting apps market is predicted to grow to $788.7 million by 2028 from $472.3 million in 2021. These apps are popular because they help parents take care of their children. In order to develop babies properly, caregivers must be well aware of the physiological and psychological peculiarities of child development by months. It’s clear that parents can always turn to pediatricians, but it’s always easier to take a smartphone and get the required information in seconds.
If you want your infant software to be appreciated by moms and dads, it should at least have a user-friendly interface, attractive design, and run smoothly. The product must be constantly updated and receive new features. Otherwise, your users will choose the competitor’s application.
Elinext specialists developed a lot of digital products for various fields such as medicine, trade, banking, manufacturing, retail, and others. We’ve told you about the most necessary features of an ideal baby development app. If you want to know more details (development language, development time, development team, cost, etc.), contact us right now.
