Gwiggle

When I had my first daughter almost eleven years ago (seems like yesterday) I had a genuine baby book where I recorded her growth and all of her firsts. When I had my second daughter three years later I used a calendar to jot things down. My son came next and I think I kept notes on scraps of paper but I can’t remember exactly. Somehow all of his important details made it into the scrapbook so I must have been somewhat on top of things. And now we come to baby number four and I’ve been keeping track of her on my computer’s notepad. If it’s a good month I’ll go in at the end of the month and write down what happened that month. If it’s a normal month then I’ll probably forget and have to go back and write down the dates to the best of my recollection. I figure at least I’m getting photos of her so she won’t be able to say we totally forgot about her! And for the record, that is anything but the case…truth is she’s been such a high maintenance baby (thank you protein intolerance and acid reflux and her incredible amount of spitting up) that her first birthday party will be also be my survivor party. You’d think that the mom who reviews iPhone apps would have wised up and used one to keep better track of Baby J’s growth but I haven’t. As I mentioned before it’s been all about survival this year.

Now with that out of the way let me introduce you to Gwiggle, a baby book meets iPhone app. It has five different sections and I’ll let you know about each.

Day 1 – Here you will enter in your baby’s name and all of their important birth details. Date and time of birth, weight and length, etc. At the bottom of this section there are three buttons. The “Doctor” button takes you to a screen where you can enter in up to five different doctors. Each doctor has their own screen where you can type in their phone number, email and address. You can also enter in appointment dates and descriptions. The next button is “Vaccinations” and it can be turned on or off. If you’ve turned it on then the button will also show up on the Doctor screen. There you can tap it and enter in the dates your baby received the different vaccinations. I liked that the vaccinations were already listed so you don’t have to remember all the abbreviations and spellings. The last button is “Baby Brother/Sister” and with this button you can add in siblings and then enter in their birth information, doctors and vaccinations.

Dr. Gwiggle – This section shows the doctor information that you entered in on the Day 1 screens. If you didn’t enter it in there then you can enter it in here. You can also deal with the vaccinations here too.

Photo – If you’d like to use Gwiggle to store photos of your baby you can. You have the option of choosing a frame before you take a photo. From what I saw you can’t bring in a photo from  your camera roll. The app’s description says you can take video with the app as well. My iPhone doesn’t do video so I wasn’t able to test that feature.

Bubbles – Bubbles is a section where you can type in notes about your baby as things happen. The app will time and date stamp your comment and then it appears on the screen in a bubble. It looks like a text message conversation once you have several comments entered.

Steps – This part of the app has five different sub sections and was my favorite section. First is “Tooth Fairy”. With this the screen is filled by a giant smiley face with a mouth full of teeth. The idea is to tap on a tooth and then enter the date your baby got a new tooth or lost one. Once you’ve entered the date a star will show up on the tooth. I love the concept of this screen but I wasn’t a big fan of the smiley face. It just didn’t fit with the feel of the rest of the app. Next comes “Growth Chart” and it’s exactly what it says it is, a way of tracking your baby’s growth. “Countdown Calendar” gave me a smile. Based on your baby’s birth date it will tell you how many years, months and days are left until they become a teenage, leave the nest and more. “Firsts” is a list of first events and you’ll want to tap on them to enter the date that the first happened. It makes it easy to keep track of such things. “My Family” let’s you put family member’s names onto the petals of a flower. The baby is the center of the flower and then you can tap on the other petals and type in the names of brothers, sisters, grandmas, grandpas, etc.

Gwiggle seemed like a pretty thorough baby book to me and a good way to keep on top of life with kids. Take a lesson from what I haven’t done myself and use an app to keep track of all the things that will be over before you know it.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: EdElder

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.