Child Life Apps

Apps are a Child Life Specialist’s best friend in the hospital setting. Two apps that are fairly new but extremely helpful are White Noise Baby and Today’s Parents My family. The first app, White Noise Baby, is great to have in the NICU and PICU. When babies come in and need to stay in these units they do not have all the comforts that they would at home. Part of a CLS job is to calm down a baby so that a tired parent can get some rest. This app provides a wide range of sounds to soothe a baby. One example is a baby who was in the hospital and would not sleep because she could only sleep with a fan on. This app has a fan sound and would have been perfect for her. It has a range of sounds from vacuums, car ride, air conditioner, Doppler ultrasound etc. The app also has a “nap” mode. This mode allows for no interruptions.  So, even if the device gets a notification or message the noise will not interrupt the app. The second app is Today’s Parents My Family. This app allows parents to put in their child’s due date or birth date and then the app gets relevant information. When a parents puts in the app that they have a newborn the app generates helpful tips for dealing with newborns, recipes for baby food (more for when the child is older), it also has age relevant health information. Parents may not always know when their child should be walking or talking so this is a great tool. The app is also nice for a CLS to have so that they can introduce it to parents to use and educate new parents once they go home. The app also has a nap and feeding tracker. A CLS could look at this to see if the child is eating or sleeping properly and if that could be contributing to a health issue. The apps can be found in any Apple or Android app store and are free.