technology Archives - A Baby on Board blog

Call me, baby – five ways my mobile makes me a much better mum

Gillian — Wed, 02 Mar 2016 09:56:03 +0000

Can your mobile make you a better mum? I was thinking about this last week when mine was out of action for a couple of days after I smashed the screen into a million tiny pieces. ‘How did you do it?’ the guy in the shop asked. ‘Erm…I got it out to take a photo of a cloud for my daughter, and my fingers were cold as I’d been pushing the pram, so I accidentally dropped it on the pavement’ I said sheepishly. He laughed and told me to come back at 2pm to pick it up. ‘How will I know?’ I asked. He laughed again ‘No, seriously!’ I said. ‘It’s my watch.’ If you were to believe the likes of the tabloid press, then modern mums are on their phones 24/7 and never let them leave their hands, while their children go sad and hungry and suffer from all sorts of psychological damage. I was also emailed this week about a restaurant chain that’s launched a ‘no phone zone’ and banned mobiles from tables as a special Mother’s Day ‘treat’. Apparently it’s the answer to ‘prayers of mums across the nation’ after they conduced research about behaviour that can ruin family outings (Oh, us mums! Always spoiling all the fun. And needing someone to nanny and patronise us, clearly). But are phones always the worst thing when you’re a parent? Mobile use is something I am really conscious of, of course – I try to only check mine at a few certain times, only ever when my children are occupied, and I leave it at home when we go to playgroup and the park, but hey, we’re all adults who can make our own decisions. I have such faith in mumkind, and I really believe most parents don’t sit constantly looking at their phones and ignoring their children. Especially as anyone with small children knows they won’t let you ignore them. Were similar criticisms levelled at mums for reading books when they were a new ‘thing’? I’ve written before about how technology can help you as a parent, and it’s networks that connect you, but it’s your phone that’s portable and so easily accessible when you’re a parent (how often do you have time to sit down with the laptop? And you can’t really check it behind a cushion, can you?). For me, my mobile puts the world that’s not quite accessible when I’m at home with two children, back at my fingertips. And contrary to all the negative reports, I actually think it makes me a better mother – here’s five reasons why: Because it’s good to talk: It’s a strapline to an old BT advertising campaign, but it’s never truer than when you’re a new mum. It’s a confusing and often lonely time, and for me it was helpful to know that people were right there if I needed them, for advice, reassurance or just a connecting chat. Talking to other mums, especially on Twitter at all hours of the night on night feeds, was a sanity saver, and made me feel much less alone and lots happier. The phone connects you to people – friends, other mums, your mum – when you’re feeling isolated and are often stuck on the sofa for hours and hours feeding. And much as I clearly think my children are the best thing on the planet, I have to admit their small talk’s not up to much yet (although we have long discussions about things like hands and frost, it often consists of them shouting ‘Can I watch Paw Patrol?’ Or taking it in turns to sit on a chair over and over saying ‘byeeeee, cats.’) Nothing beats a bit of checking in and mood-improving chat with some other adults. It’s my virtual village: Have you heard the expression ‘it takes a village to raise a child?’ How does that work if your nearest relative is three hours away, like it is for me and most people I know? It’s hard to raise children when most of the time it’s just you. However, the phone brings and keeps me together with people in a myriad of different ways when distance is an issue. Recently one of my children had a strange rash, so I took a photo and emailed it to my mum and mother-in-law. Within five minutes one of them had phoned me to reassure and the other had messaged me some advice and a link to the NHS website. When you’re a mum, I’m pretty sure it’s the modern equivalent of hanging over the garden fence to ask other people’s opinion…and have a good gossip. It allows me to spend *more* time with my children: If you were to believe all the negative reports then your phone is a route of all evil that keeps you away from your children. On the contrary, mine allows me to spend much more time with them. Due the nature of what I do I have to work all over the week, and it means I can keep an eye on things remotely, wherever we are – I’m not stuck in the house glued to the desktop. It lets you know you’re not the only one: Recently one of my children was having a moment at playgroup, and another mum came over and said it made her feel better to see someone else’s child be like hers. It makes me happy to know that other people might feel think that about things I’ve written on this blog (like being really neurotic first time round, feeling like there’s never enough of things and finding out things that other people never tell you). It’s comforting and reassuring to know that motherhood, although new to you at times, it a well worn path. It shows me the way: I’m not talking the godsend of Google Maps for the directionally challenged, or the genius of the Find Friends app (although on those long days I’ve been known to obsessively track my husband’s progress home on […]

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My bid to banish the baby brain in 2015

Gillian — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 16:18:19 +0000

My name is Gill, and I have a really bad case of baby brain. Sleep deprived, hormonal and as a result, ever-so-slightly forgetful? Yes, yes, and yes…that’s me. One of my New Year’s Resolutions for 2015 is to be more organised in a bid to banish my baby brain. Although this probably won’t make me remember what I went into rooms for, or stop me leaving whole bags of shopping on the counter, I do think this will go some way to help. And help is at hand. I’m using the new Microsoft Surface Pro 3 tablet to try out and see how it can assist me in keeping to my New Year’s Resolution (if you’ve not heard of the Surface tablet, it’s basically the functionality of a laptop combined with the portability and touch screen joys of a tablet – you can see the range of Microsoft Surface tablets on the Argos website). I’ve made a little video of me unboxing the tablet, and my initial impressions (it’s my first vlog! Leave me your YouTube details too so I can subscribe to your channel). First thoughts? It looks great and seems incredibly intuitive to use. The keyboard cover is such a good idea and it’ll make life a lot easier (as at the moment I type most of my posts on my phone). The active boxes on the front page will also be really useful as it means I can have everything important upfront. I also think the portability is going to be a massive help, especially with blogging. Due to having two children I only have a tiny amount of time, so it’s tricky keeping up (I currently have about 10,000 half done posts in drafts, and really long lists of things I’d like to write – sound familiar?) Having everything in an easily accessible place will be great – there’s only so much I can do from my phone or iPad, and our laptop – a Macbook Pro – isn’t the easiest to take into bed (where I do a lot of my work at 3am). I’m going to be reviewing the tablet over the next few weeks and seeing how it can help me banish the baby brain…so stay tuned. This post is an association with Argos.

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Call me, maybe

Gillian — Sun, 12 Jan 2014 11:24:44 +0000

Hands up; who had one of these as a child? We did, and the dog on a string, and, of course, the Little People I’ve written about before. I love vintage Fisher Price toys and had been meaning to track one of these phones down for Eliza for ages. We found this last week in one of our new local charity shops. OK, so it’s not the wooden original that we had, but it was a bargainous 50p. However, it occurred to me when we got it home that it’s pretty much a museum piece. Like the old-school technology our children won’t experience, fixed line phones with cords are about as relevant to our children as the gramophone was to us. As the wireless handset generation, they’ll never know the joys of stretching the phone cord across into the next room when your best friend called, for fear that your parents or brothers would possibly overhear a whisper of your teenage telephone chat. Anyway, E loves the phone. She calls phones ‘hiyooos’ and spent the journey back from the shops with it clutched to her ear. Once home – and it was thoroughly disinfected – she’s spent hours on it since, no doubt racking up a massive imaginary bill.

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Saving time, preserving memories and keeping you sane; how technology can help you as a parent

Gillian — Wed, 06 Nov 2013 12:04:58 +0000

Eliza and I enrolled for a morning at Google School this week, as we went along to an event held for mum – and dad – bloggers designed to show how you can use technology to simplify and enhance your day-to-day life. The Google offices are as quirky and cool as you’d expect (grass carpets, floor TVs, croquet sets and so on). And as usual I spent most of the morning running around after my toddler, but what I heard was both interesting and useful, we met some some brilliant bloggers and there was lots of cake. Do you use technology a lot? Following the event, I’ve been thinking about the place it can have in your life as a parent. And for us, it plays a subtle but significant role in our household, from the old-school tech right the way through to the newer devices. Here’s ten of the ways that we use technology, and how it can help you out as a parent: 1) It helps you stay close when you’re miles apart Due to the wonders of FaceTime and Skype, Eliza sees and speaks to her relatives on a near-daily basis. She can sing songs to cheer my dad up when he’s having a bad day, watches her cousin spin around and say her name, and say ‘hiyoooo’ to Uncle Fred’s new dog George weeks before they’re likely to meet in person. Obviously, nothing can replace face-to-face contact, but while distance is between us for the foreseeable future, it’s the next best thing. 2) It can help take the mundane hassle out of everyday life Online banking, bill paying and so on – technology can simplify all of the tedious household tasks that previously consisted of going to places and standing in a queue for ages. Freeing up more time to do the fun stuff instead. 3) Technology can help you stay in touch So yes there’s video calling, but we also stay in touch with friends and relatives via Flickr (to avoid the social overshare, we have a closed group that we upload Eliza photos to), email, text, Twitter and so on. My newest favourite is Touchnote, an app that lets you send postcards made out of your own photos from your phone. 4) And it helps keep you in touch I didn’t read a newspaper or magazine for weeks when I had a baby, as I didn’t really have an attention span. Twitter kept me up to date with everything that was going on, no matter how mundane. 5) It helps you do something with the time previously called ‘the evening’, aka that bit before you go to bed I don’t know how parents coped without on demand TV and Sky+. Used to an interrupted night, we record most things to watch later and also watch a lot of box sets on Netflix. 6) It helps you remember the small things My post-baby memory is like a sieve – I walk into rooms and forget what I went for, fail to remember the smallest of shopping lists, and what was I saying again? But due to the wonders of Timehop I know that a year ago I was thinking about second babies, and a year before that I was thinking about what to do before the arrival of our first baby (and mourning the sad state of my belly button). 7) Stop the clocks! It can help save time There’s loads of useful ways you can save time. Here are my tips on breastfeeding and social media; mainly based around how you can use the time you’re sat down to multitask and get other things done (with my number one parenting essential, a smartphone). 8 ) It helps get your baby to sleep We spent so many of the early nights of babydom sat in the dark with only the sound of our white noise app in the room. There’s also the amazing Rockabye Baby, if you want something slightly more musical. 9) It helps put the wine in your hand and food on the table Online supermarket shopping. Especially brilliant when you don’t have a car. 10) And finally, it helps keep you sane… 5.30am, never-ending journeys, the end of the longest day when you’re exhausted; sometimes, only YouTube and Peppa Pig will do. Thanks for having us, Google! You can also follow my personal Google+ profile… …as well as the A Baby on Board page.

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