New app demystifies meeting baby’s needs for new parents
It’s 2am and your baby’s been crying for the past hour. Nothing you do seems to be helping them to settle and it’s no longer just the baby crying.
If you’re one of the thousands, or probably millions, of parents nodding your head in recognition right now, Australian mothercraft nurse Jennifer Hamilton has answered your prayers with her WOTBaby app. The app offers new parents and caregivers relevant practice based information designed to educate, empower and boost confidence. It will encourage you to make informed decisions when caring for your baby.
How WOTBaby was born
For over twenty-five years, Jennifer had been working as a mothercraft nurse and sleep consultant, both in clinics and in private practice offering in-home consultations. Over this time, she had developed a very successful, yet also highly adaptable, framework for parents to help meet the needs of their babies in a consistent, predictable and loving manner.
“Despite the successes I had working directly with parents, I was still frustrated. Private in-home consultations simply aren’t a possibility for many parents. I wanted to find a way to help more parents and so the idea for the WOTBaby app was born,” says Jennifer.
How the WOTBaby app works
The WOTBaby app is based on Jennifer’s ‘windows of time’ methodology. The app, which is personalized to your baby, supports the journey of caring for babies from newborn to six months. Tailored to your baby’s name and age, the app provides the parent or caregiver with week-by-week development milestones and tackles the myriad of challenges parents might be navigating through at that particular stage such as feeding and settling.
The ‘windows of time’ concept will assist you to understand the relationship between feeding, sleeping and playing. Feeding, settling, sleeping and playing are interrelated activities, especially when your baby is very young, and they have a great impact on each other. The ‘windows of time’ approach can help you to effectively eliminate negative factors within each activity, so that each activity can have a positive effect on the others.
WOTBaby offers parents an estimated time schedule to work with, based on the age and development stage of your baby. This approach helps you to develop a workable, realistic routine for you and your baby – not some fictional ‘perfect’ baby.
Unlike some other parenting guides, the goal is to help you – and your baby – create your own flexible routine that suits your individuality, rather than adhering to a rigid schedule. The WOTBaby app acknowledges that every baby and parent is different and there is no one-size-fits-all approach.
Instead, the app offers an instant step-by-step flow of tips and advice parents and caregivers can try as you find what works for you and your baby. And to help tired and frustrated parents struggling to understand how to put ideas into practice when it’s the middle of the night and everyone’s over it, the app also includes instructional videos for things like wrapping and settling methods.
Confident, consistent parenting = contented baby
The WOTBaby app will not guarantee you a ‘perfect’ baby. A baby who is never unsettled or never crying is not normal! But what the app will give you is the knowledge and confidence to make the right informed decisions when caring for your baby. These decisions will, in the long run, help to produce a happy, more contented baby. More importantly, parents who confidently believe their decisions are the right ones for them will have a greater chance of creating the perfect routine for their family – whatever that routine may be.
The WOTBaby app will assist you in meeting all your baby’s needs through a process of elimination. Knowing what your baby’s needs are according to his/her age and stage of development, you will be able to confidently eliminate all negative factors which may contribute to your baby not being able to feed, sleep or settle well. When you eliminate most of these contributing factors and remain consistent your baby will feed more efficiently, settle with less fuss and sleep better as a result.
The WOTBaby app is available in the iTunes app store for $2.99.
Read more about Jennifer and the WOTBaby App at www.wotbaby.com.au
