With a new arrival in your house, time with your iPhone will become ever more precious. Therefore you really need a new app that will fully legitimise your iPhone usage over the coming months, even when there are bottles to feed and bottoms to wipe.

The most useful iPhone application you can own after your child is born is one that you can use to track your child’s 3 main activities – drinking, sleeping and filling nappies. It is important to monitor these functions carefully as your newborn develops, and the iPhone provides an elegant and useful alternative to paper and pen.

My top two picks are Baby Geek (59p) and Baby Brain (£2.99).

Baby Geek (59p) is a great value application that is simple to use and has some really great timeline graphs to analyse feeding/sleeping/changing patterns. As well as the standard activity recording and tracking of which boob was used last, you can also record other events such as trimming nails or eating a meal. There is also the very useful ability to record and graph your baby’s height and weight. Coming in the next version will be the ability to synchronise data between two devices – this should be a great feature when both parents have iPhones/iPod Touches. My only gripes about Baby Geek are that events entered out of order mess-up the ability to display graphs until you go in and re-sort them (why isn’t that done automatically?), and the interface is a little sluggish at times. But otherwise it is keenly priced, performs well, and the author provides top notch support to any queries.

Baby Brain (£2.99) is at the higher price end of the market and actually does less than Baby Geek. However, the interface is simple and uncluttered, the app is ultra intuitive to use, and it also runs as quick and as smooth as baby diarrhoea. Again you can record sleeping, feeding and nappy changing, but this time there are no extra events, no fancy graphs, and not even the ability to record meals. This limits the use as a complete feeding diary to whenever you begin weaning your baby, which I feel is something that needs to be addressed in a future update. However, the basic functions of Baby Brain work extremely well and there is even a lovely icon of a pair of breasts that will never fail to amuse. If the authors could add a few graphing options, add meals to the logger, and also add the ability to synchronise between different devices, then Baby Brain would truly be the ultimate logging tool.

The following is a list of every single baby logging app available. You should note that to be eligible for my list an app had to cover all 3 activities (drinking, sleeping, changing), not be a ‘lite’ version with limitations, and it had to be available in the UK app store.

• Baby Geek (59p) – Dadgets.info top choice
• Baby Watch (59p)
• KiddyBase (£1.19)
• Nimble Baby (£1.19)
• Baby Activity Logger (£1.79)
• Baby Super Tracker (£1.79)
• Baby Time (£2.39)
• Baby Brain (£2.99) – Dadgets.info top choice
• Baby Daily Log (£2.99)
• Baby Log (£2.99)
• Baby Timer (£2.99)
• Total Baby (£2.99)
• TurtleTOUCH Infant Log – HOME (£11.99)

There’s nothing more boring than a moaning woman in labour, but what if you could play on your iPhone throughout the whole ordeal without any recriminations whatsoever? Step forward the contraction timer app.

I’ve been able to find 17 applications that are specifically designed to monitor the duration and frequency of your wife’s screaming while she is making a right meal of childbirth:

• Baby’s Coming (free) – Dadgets.info top choice
• Contraculate (free)
• Contractulator (free)
• TapTimer Lite (free)
• Contractions (59p)
• Contraction Master (59p)
• Contraction Timer & Fetal Kick Counter (59p)
• iContraction (59p)
• iPreg (Pregnancy iTool) (59p)
• Labor Mate (59p)
• NineMonths – Contractions & Movements (59p)
• Birth Buddy (£1.19)
• Contractions Alert – Baby Boy (£1.19)
• Contraction Tracker (£1.19)
• iStork (£1.19)
• Baby Time – Pregnancy Contraction Timer (£2.39)
• Expecting (£2.99)

So which one would I recommend? Well, my choice of contraction timer has got to be the completely free Baby’s Coming. Its first killer feature is that it keeps timing, even when you exit the app or shut down the phone. This means that you can pretend to be studying statistics of contraction frequency and duration, when in fact you’re just passing time with a bit of Super Monkey Ball. Not all contraction timer apps have this feature, so be sure to check up first.

Secondly, Baby’s Coming just has a lovely, clean, simple interface. There are no fancy pink backgrounds or cutesy images of babies – it’s a simple, honest, timing application that a man can use with pride.  I also love the ability to view average duration and frequency (over the last 5 contractions) right there on the one simple main screen. You can also look back at the history of contractions to pinpoint the exact precise moment that you were called a *&^*%$ ^&*$*%. This evidence could be priceless when trying to seek authorisation for future Dadget purchases.

Congratulations! You made it through the gruelling ordeal of intercourse with your wife, and your sperm swam valiantly onwards to victory. Now you’re ready to move on to the next phase of iPhone apps.

The only pregnancy application you’ll ever need is iPregnancy. This app will follow progress towards your due date, display representative 3D images of your baby as it grows, and provide you with many facts and figures on its development. It can also remind you of upcoming midwife appointments and even allow you to keep a list of favourite names, which can be selected from a built-in database of popular choices.

As you approach fatherhood you’ll also need to keep a tighter rein on your finances, so I recommend using iXpenseit to track your incomings and outgoings. New entries can be entered with a few taps, and impressive looking graphs and charts show you exactly how broke you really are.

Finally, as you approach fatherhood you’ll be needing to use the eBay iPhone app to keep track of your house clearance. As well as selling your old tat to make room for ‘baby stuff’, now is also a great time to sell off your old porn collection.

While the iPhone App Store does not sell any porn, it is still a good source of mild titillation if you need some additional stamina during rampant periods of copulation. Hooters Calendar Girls Crazy Eights has to be a favourite iPhone app for all red-blooded men who have ever stepped foot into one of America’s finest eating establishments.

While the Hooters app mascarades as a card game, there are no such shenanigans from iBikini TV which is just packed full of girls in bikinis, with a fresh batch uploaded every day. Sexy Hotties Slideshow is similarly blessed with simplicity – you get a good solid selection of attractive flesh that will give you just the boost you’ll need.

Of course, if romance is more your thing, then you can always just use your iPhone as a nice source of romantic lighting by using the Flametastic app that I’ve mentioned previously.

Before you take the plunge and decide to have unprotected sex with a fertile young lady with firm buttocks and breasts, you should really turn to your iPhone for advice and support. The App Store is full of tools that can track your partner’s periods (and this can be useful for other reasons, don’t forget) which is essential for discovering the best days to sow your seed. So where to begin?

Well you can start by disregarding any applications that have horrendous names, such as PeriodicRED, for example. You should also reject any paid-for apps, such as the £3.99 FemCal. Finally, you should spare yourself the queasiness by ignoring any application that goes into unnecessary details of flow rates and spotting days, such as Period Tracker.

My fertility calendar of choice is therefore the Free Menstrual Calendar that has a reasonable name, costs nothing, and doesn’t mention any kind of slow/medium/heavy/gushing flow scale. Furthermore, it even has the option to record ‘intimate relations’ which I find really quite amusing.