Baby Analytics – How much does a newborn eat, pee, poop, and sleep?

I am slightly obsessed with numbers and statistics. For me, it’s fun to keep track of things. So Olive and I have been keeping track of the things that Allie does, like pooping, peeing, eating, and sleeping. It’s been very helpful in learning about our baby and her needs. It’s also allowed us to develop a schedule for the day that meets Alena’s needs, Olive’s needs, and my needs for food, sleep, and personal time.

“Parents who actually chart their baby’s day by writing everything down have less trouble sticking to a routine or establishing it for the first time. They are also better observers. Writing things down, even though it seems tedious at the moment, will give you a much better perspective. You’ll see patterns more readily, and see how sleep and eating and activity are interrelated.” – Tracy Hogg in The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems [affiliate link].

We started writing these things down at the hospital. The nurses gave us a “Baby Record Sheet” to keep track of the first 8 days. We found it so helpful that we continued. If you’re a new parent and want to keep track, we’ve created our own sheet which you can download to use here (http://db.tt/WViX6P08).
(Note: We use Dropbox to share files. It is an excellent cloud service, allowing you to store 2GB of files online, which you can share and access from anywhere. If you are considering starting a Dropbox account, please use this link which will give both you and I an extra 250MB of free storage.)

Here are a few graphs I’ve put together, if you’re interested.

This graph shows how much Allie has eaten in the first 35 days, and also how much breastmilk Olive has pumped. Olive uses a Medela “in style advanced” double breast pump which we bought on Amazon [affiliate link]. It works very well for her.

This next chart shows the longest amount of time Alena has slept during the night. This is very important, because this is also the longest amount of sleep we have had at a time as well.

How many diapers do you need? This chart will tell you.

We’ve developed a new schedule to try to maximize Olive and my sleep at night. We’ve also been trying to figure out when we each can have a bit of personal time during the day. We’re starting this new schedule today, so we’ll let you know how it goes.