If you just cannot afford to (yet again!) leave the grocery store or restaurant due to a cranky, crying baby, you may be desperate for a solution that works to quiet your child for just a few more minutes. You may try singing, dancing, holding, feeding or making silly faces, but sometimes none of that works. Thankfully, you can pull out your phone and load up one of the many apps designed just for infants and toddlers to calm and quiet down your child. Here are five apps to consider downloading and having ready for the next time you need to distract your baby.
Peekaboo Barn
While playing Peekaboo Barn, babies and toddlers absolutely love tapping the doors and seeing an animal pop out to surprise them. The app states the animal’s name and plays its vocalizations. The bright colors and interesting sounds capture the youngest babies’ attention in an instant. Other game modes allow older toddlers to guess the animal behind the door by listening to the sounds. You can record yourself or your child saying the animal names for future play throughs.
Make a Scene
Make A Scene copies the reusable sticker books of yesteryear in both style and function. Your baby can select a background and tap the screen to place stickers over the top. Two children can play this app together since it is possible to move and place multiple stickers at the same time. Many of the stickers are animated with sequences that delight and surprise infant and toddler players. This app scales well as your child ages with options to save snapshots and share them with friends and family.
Pat the Bunny
Pat the Bunny, a popular children’s book character, has arrived on an interactive app styled after the series of the same name. The app includes fourteen scenes that encourage kids to explore and decorate on their own. Pat even acts as a digital pet with feeding and playing activities to enjoy. Just a simple tap or swipe invokes a response, so this app easily engages all age groups.
Balloonimals
Before babies can safely play with real balloons, they can delight in the wonder of balloon animals with the Balloonimals app. You will need to help young babies blow into the microphone to blow up their animals. After that, they can tap, shake and tilt the app to make their animal do all sorts of silly tricks. The eye catching sounds and visuals keep kids watching the screen in anticipation of the next event.
I Hear Ewe
I Hear Ewe is another animal themed app that teaches kids about the sounds and names of their favorite creatures. The app has an incredibly simple layout that is easy for the youngest of children to navigate on their own. With just a tap on the screen, the app plays the expected noises while showing a picture of the selected animal.
You will need to experiment with all of the available app options to find the ones that keep your child happily tapping the screen.