The Essential Baby Care Guide App - Review

You may remember that last year I wrote a review of a fabulous resource for new parents, The Essential Baby Care Guide. This is a four DVD box set covering 1. Feeding, 2. Care & Development, 3. Sleeping, and 4. First Aid and Accident Prevention, which I felt would have been really useful in the early months of BB's life. Indeed it still has some relevant info, even though he is almost 2.

Well, The Essential Parent Company have now launched The Essential Baby Care Guide App,  made with top UK medical experts covering all the vital issues and basic skills new parents may need to know about. I really wish this had been around when I first had BB. Being home alone with him most of the time, I have had several anxious nights, wondering if he is OK. I have lost count of the number of times I have googled something on my phone in the early hours, only to be worried by what I find, or left wondering if I can trust the information at all. 

The App contains lots of information organised into sections, just like the DVD and then divided into chapters: There are 3 chapters on feeding, 4 on care a development, 1 on sleeping and 2 on first aid. In addition there are also new sections, which include a New Baby chapter, one on travel, and another on bonding.

Each of the chapters is further divided into little snippets of information on a particular topic or issue. This is then presented as a short video, for example there is a short video on how to take a temperature, one on the signs of meningitis, and another on respiratory distress (all things I have googled at 2am!).

The Essential Baby Care Guide App is FREE to download,  and twenty of the most useful videos come FREE, such as those on Meningitis, Post Natal Depression, Preventing Crying, Nappy Demos, and the Poo Gallery! You then have the option of buying individual videos specifically dealing with the topic you are interested in. Individual videos cost 69p, but you can get much better value for money by buying a bundle, for example the whole Baby Safety Bundle would cost you just £1.49, and the sleep bundle is £2.49.

I would definitely recommend that every new parent downloads the app and has access to the free content, it's up to you then whether you wish to make any further purchases. Having a trusted resource on demand and at your finger tips is invaluable, and far more reassuring than Dr Google! 

I actually think that in an ideal world I would really like to have both the DVD set and the App .The DVD is very comprehensive, easy watching (great for when you are spending hours and hours feeding in those early days) and gives the big picture. The app has the capacity to deliver a specific piece of knowledge at the time you need it. 

If you wish to buy the full DVD set, you can get £5 off by purchasing direct from www.essentialparent.com and entering the code Bliss at checkout. The App can be downloaded here.

The response to the Essential Baby Care Guide DVDs, which are narrated and advised by Professor Robert Winston has been astonishing. John Lewis and Mamas & Papas snapped it up. New Mums and Dads love it and have given it 5 star ratings. Children’s Centres have been buying it up and down the country. It will be used by UNICEF to train midwives and by the Royal College of Paediatrics to help train Junior Doctors. It was shortlisted for ‘Best Innovation’ in Mother & Baby Awards 2013.

To be totally open, I did get to view the video for free, and it now in the hands of our local NCT branch so that it can be loaned out to parents and parents to be. I was also given a code to access several more of the videos on the App. I was not paid to write this though, and all opinions are 100% mine.