In 2020, about 3.6 million babies were born in the United States. While births are joyous occasions, welcoming a child into your life can also be stressful. Overall, around 25 percent of first-time mothers go through a period of low maternal confidence, and approximately 11 percent of new fathers experience some level of anxiety during the perinatal and postpartum periods.

If you’ve recently welcomed a child, you may wonder if there are any tools that can help you maintain your footing. Luckily, there are some outstanding apps for parents out there. If you’re a first-time parent, here are five must-have apps, brought to you by photographer Taryn Melgoza.

5 Amazing Apps for First-Time Parents

1. Cozi Family Organizer

With Cozi, you can have a centralized place to track all of your family’s appointments and activities. You can make sure that everyone’s aware of upcoming doctor’s appointments or other scheduled events, keeping both parents on the same page. Plus, you can make chore and shopping lists, consolidating the information into one location to make everything simpler to monitor.

2. Glow Baby

The Glow Baby app is a tool that helps you celebrate every milestone during your baby’s first year. Along with tracking developmental milestones, it also allows you to keep up with feedings, diapers, and sleep logging. All of the information is presented using a beautiful but data-driven approach. It’s as attractive as it is informative, making it a joy to use.

As a bonus, you’ll also get parenting tips delivered to you daily. The app personalizes what it shows based on your baby’s age, health, and progress, ensuring the insights are as relevant to you as possible.

3. Sleep Baby Sleep

While sleep problems are normal with infants, that doesn’t mean parents don’t want to find solutions. Sleep Baby Sleep allows you to create white noise in a space. You get to select from several different kinds of sounds, giving you a way to find an option that best suits your baby.

Considering that one study found that 80 percent of infants fell asleep within five minutes once they heard white noise, this app could be a metaphorical lifesaver. It’s important to note that there is evidence that white noise is helpful for colic - potentially more so than swinging - making this app a solid choice for that situation, too.

4. The Wonder Weeks

With The Wonder Weeks, you have a robust tool for tracking mental development milestones. Additionally, it includes insights designed to help parents guide their babies through the various steps, ensuring they can progress through each “leap” and remain on the path toward healthy development. The app is comprehensive and user-friendly, making it easy to stay organized during this critical period in your child’s life.

5. Mommy Saver: High Contrast Baby Visual Stimulation

A baby’s vision changes significantly during the first year of life. High contrast images are easier for infants to focus on and can help their vision develop. As a result, high contrast pictures can both be engaging for babies and increase their odds of having better vision.

With Mommy Saver: High Contrast Baby Visual Stimulation, you’ll always have a collection of images available. The pictures involve a lot of black and white, as well as some bright colors. Additionally, many incorporate movements, and the app adjusts the images based on your baby’s age, promoting healthy vision development.

Bonus App: Redfin

If you need to find a larger home to support your growing family, the Redfin app makes it easy. You can use filters to narrow down the options efficiently, ensuring the results list shows only homes that meet your needs. Then, you can take video tours and use virtual walkthroughs to explore the house from the comfort of your home, making finding the right property simpler than ever before.

Becoming a parent for the first time can be totally overwhelming as well as rewarding, so look for ways — and apps! — that can help everything balance. And make sure you work with a family photographer like Taryn Melgoza to capture all of those wonderful moments before they pass!