Best of 2011: Apps for Parents and Parents-to-Be

LilSugarSource: Best of 2011: Apps For Parents and Parents-to-Be

Whether you're tracking the days until your lil one arrives, attempting to organize your hectic family life, or trying to capture those adorable smiling faces, there's an app for you. Check out the 20 must-have apps that made our lives easier - and more fun! - this year.

• I'm Expecting: I'm Expecting (free) tracks the important information, like symptoms and doctor appointments, in one place. The comprehensive app provides weekly updates about baby's growth and enables users to schedule doctor appointments, upload belly photos, and even send out a birth announcement.
• Baby Names Plus: What to name a lil one is one of the first important decisions parents make for their child. With lists containing over 25,000 baby names, Baby Names Plus ($2) is a fun way to help make that first major decision. Names can be searched by meaning, origin, popularity, or pronunciation, and parents can create ranked lists of their favorites.
• Baby ESP For Android: Between feedings, diaper changes, and sleep patterns, keeping track of your newborn's daily doings can be exhausting in itself. Baby ESP ($4) takes the second-guessing out of it. Track anything from naps, breastfeeding sessions, diapers, medicine and more (and send reminders to yourself through the app), and sync the data with other phones so mom, dad, and babysitter can stay on the same page.
• BabySeatMate: Infant car seats are notoriously incorrectly installed by many parents. The BabySeatMate app ($1) allows mama to enter her car's make and model information, as well as those of her car seat. Then place the phone in the seat and wait while it determines if the seat is installed at the proper angle. Great for families that have to move their seats between cars, for $1 it offers great peace of mind.
• Baby Shusher: Fans of the Happiest Baby on the Block method of baby care know the importance of shushing a newborn. The sound is said to mimic what a baby hears inside the womb. The Baby Shusher app ($5) mimics the sound to help a tot fall asleep. It raises and lowers its volume based on the level of a newborn's cries - giving mama a rest when she needs it most.

• Camera+: All in one, baby! Camera+ ($1) is the only iPhone camera app you'll ever need. Edit your photos - by cropping, adding borders, or enhancing with 27 different photo filters to choose from - all from your smartphone!
• Cozi Family Organizer For Android: This free version of the Cozi Family Organizer (upgrade to the $6 version for more features) includes the requisite central family calendar (which everyone in the family can share through a Cozi online account) as well as shared grocery and to-do lists and a journal feature.
• The Guys Guide to the Delivery Room: The Guys Guide to the Delivery Room ($1) prepares men for that big moment that they've probably been excited about and dreading in equal measure. The app gives easy-to-understand, play-by-play information about what to expect in the delivery room, so that hopefully, when the time arrives, dad-to-be can focus on his partner, instead of breathing into a paper bag to stop hyperventilating.
• iHandy Carpenter: iHandy Carpenter ($2) makes putting together a crib, changing table, and countless other some-assembly-required baby products a little bit easier - especially if the soon-to-be daddy isn't necessarily gifted with a hammer. It comes with five different tools - a plumb bob, surface level, bubble level bar, steel protractor, and steel ruler - because a lopsided changing table just won't do.
• HoneyDo: HoneyDo ($5) is an app that lets a pregnant, craving mama-to-be send her man to-do tasks in real time. Dad might not like the idea at first, but it's better then coming all the way home only to have to run right back out for an absolutely necessary bologna and cheese sandwich.