Having a baby can be a trying experience. On the women's side: nausea, discomfort and anxiety. On the man's side: nausea, discomfort and anxiety. Any way you look at it growing a new human is a difficult yet ultimately rewarding experience for both parties. If you are anything like me, you have tons of questions while going through the process.

Since we have recently had a new girl, I wanted to share sites which were helpful to us, to you. After consulting with my wife, we came up with the following list of baby websites that are a great help to the expecting or soon-to-be expecting mom or dad.

General Pregnancy Sites

I consider all of these sites to be "General pregnancy" sites because they are a wide ranging resource for all things related to being pregnant. Many have articles on various aspects of pregnancy and forums with other parents (but mainly moms) looking for others for help on any number of topics. Each site has its own 'vibe' so I would pick which one you like the most and stick with it throughout pregnancy rather reading every article. Reading too much about potential problems is a great way to add unnecessary anxiety to your life.

the bump

The Bump is a spinoff of The Knot and The Nest message boards and publications. These sites are mainly female oriented.

babycenter

Babycenter is a site focused not only the pregnancy part but also after your child is born.

parenting [No longer available]

Parenting is a companion website to the magazine of the same name. They are one of the more well known players in the baby website game because of how established they are in the magazine world.

What To Expect

This is another companion baby website, but this time it goes along with the book "What to Expect When You're Expecting." Back when I had my first baby, this book was the go-to resource for many of our questions and was invaluable in helping us along during a confusing time. The website seems to keep this tradition alive with a wide variety of content

How To Name Your Baby

Once of the biggest decisions while pregnant is what to name your baby. You can go with a family name or poll your friends and family, but there are some great resources online if you are looking for (more) original names.

Top Baby Names from Social Security

The United States Social Security service has been keeping statistics on baby names going back to 1879. They are listed in their entirety on this website. It is a great way to look through tons of names quickly.

Nymbler

Nymbler is a good site and among my favorites for finding baby names. What you do is put in a few of your favorite names and it will start to recommend other names that are similar based on root and origin of the name. You can use it to recommend boys' or girls' names.

Name Voyager

The Name Voyager from Baby Name Wizard is probably one of the coolest visualizations of the bunch and it really appealed to a nerd like me. As you type in a name, the wizard creates a graph of any name starting with those letters plotting popularity over time. While not good for discovering names, it does give you a good idea of how popular a name is over time and whether is a waxing or waning in popularity.

During Labor

I can't say there is much you can really do online during labor & delivery. My wife did use the baby website below to get a better idea of how far away her contractions were. If you are in labor, you typically should not be online.

Contraction Master

Contraction master has a free app on its website which allows you to time contractions. It is simple and no frills, but lets you time the length and frequency of the contractions which is one of the first things a doctor will ask you about when deciding whether or not to send you to the hospital.

Congratulations! You Have A Baby!

Baby Connect

We've covered Baby Connect before but it is definitely worth including in this list. It is one of the premier sites to help track all kinds of things about your baby. Nap times, feeding times, diaper happenings and more. It has both a free website to track this information and also iPhone and iPad apps (which are paid) that will synchronize with your online account.

It is a slick way to keep all of this information together and is useful for troubleshooting any kind of feeding or other problems with the baby. Basically it takes the place of having a paper log of this information.

KidMondo

Keeping a baby journal is a time honored tradition. KidMondo extends this onto the internet in an easy to use fashion and lets you type in milestones and data about your kid over time. After you are ready, you can print out the journal in a book format which is a great keepsake going into the future.

I was impressed with the depth of the site - it encompasses almost everything you could think of to put in a journal. From photos to height and weight measurements, it has it all. Because a laptop is not always at hand, the one thing I do wish it has is an iPhone app.

So that is a quick and dirty rundown of websites that should help you out when you are expecting. Let us know if you have any other web sites you think should have made the list in the comments below!

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