Intended Parents: Lemon or Hedgehog (or How Big Is Your Baby)?
By Suzie White
Back in the day, you had to wait with excitement for your next OB appointment or read your secondhand copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting to check on your baby’s development. Now, thanks to technology, we have a variety of choices when it comes to tracking baby-to-be. While this may be information overload for some, week by week pregnancy updates are all the rage.
As intended parents, you want to be in the loop on your baby’s developmental milestones. Why not follow the pregnancy with fun size comparisons? How about an artichoke, or is a slow loris more your speed? The following apps and sites are a great way to do that. You can also read about symptoms your surrogate may be experiencing at the time and tests you may expect. Some have tools for new parents too, such as vaccination information, feeding, sleep and diaper change trackers. Here are a few notes on some of our favs:
Now this one is cool. Ovia is very user friendly, and has the adorable feature of showing the actual size of the baby’s hand and foot on the screen in the color you choose. There is a list of foods to that are safe to eat during pregnancy, as well as an anonymous community where expectant parents can connect with others. You get to choose from four entertaining themes for size comparison: fruits and vegetables; Parisian bakery; fun and games; weird-but-cute animals. Ovia gives brief daily updates moms or dads can look forward to. There is also a cool parenting app that allows parents to track milestones, and share photos and video with friends/family.
This app is great. It provides a 3D image, so you can see baby from every angle. There are real life size comparisons, and a helpful checklist every week for parents (when to start thinking about child care, picking a pediatrician). The Bump shows tracking for twins as well. Included in the app are milestones and development after birth and beyond.
A useful website packed full of tools like the baby names finder and child growth calculator. It provides a detailed image of baby every week, and compares to fruit and veggies. BabyCenter also provides tracking info for twins. There is information on development of babies to big kids.
This is fun for a quick and easy click. Want to know when your baby is the size of a poker chip or a Star Wars action figure? This is the place for you! You choose from 4 themes to describe the size of baby: Cravings, Facts, Geeky, or Manly.
Keeping track of your baby’s size is a great way to start bonding with your little one (and with your surrogate). We’d love to hear about your favorite baby size comparisons, or any sites or apps you love for tracking the pregnancy! Email us at info@coloradosurro.com