Ellie’s Log

Yasmin LuceroQS LA meet-up October 2012

www.yasminlucero.net

Ellie, ten days old

Methods and Motives

• Keeping a baby log is encouraged by “experts”

• In particular, doctors want newborns to be closely monitored

• hospital logs/forms all sucked

• I could do better...

What we tracked• sleep

• feedings

• diapers

• medicines

• spitup

• weight

Thanks to Tori Moses, our nanny, who did a lot

of the actual work

Key technology: velcro tape

The log (latest version)

1st month

2nd-4th month

5th-6th month

6+ month

feeding breastfeed - left (mins)breastfeed - right (mins)bottle milk (ounces)

breastfeed - left (mins)breastfeed - right (mins)bottle milk (ounces)

breastfeed (LR)bottle milk (ounces)

breastfeed (yes/no)solid food typesnew food? (yes/no)

sleep NA sleep (duration rounded to quarter hour)

sleep (duration rounded to quarter hour)

sleep (duration rounded to quarter hour)

diapers Wet diapers (count)Poopie diapers (count)

Wet diapers (count)Poopie diapers (count)

Wet diapers (count)Poopie diapers (count)

Wet diapers (count)Poopie diapers (count)

medical NA spitup (qualitative check scale)

spitupmedicines medicines

Variables tracked evolved over time as needed

Sleep(or lack of)

Newborns sleep a lot

But they don’t sleep for very long at a time

9 month sleep regression

She can’t seem to stay asleep

Night time consolidation

Night consolidation

Disappearing day sleep

Naps: a measure of how long she can stay awake

This isn’t supposed to happen

Feedings

In the beginning, feedings are frequent and longLater, they are fewer and faster

It took about three months for feedings to drop down to a typical ten minutes long

Bottles of milk, while mom sleeps

hospital stay

Learning to eat

Settling into a schedule

5-10 total diapers per day

Weight

Our 50th percentile baby

Early days: apparently reflux suppressed growth

Measuring reflux

• this was hard, and didn’t produce graph-able data

• our qualitative scale:

✔ some spit-up ✔✔ a lot of spit-up ✔✔✔ whoa, that was a lot

Teething

The books are liars

first teeth cut through

(at last)

start of teething: age 4 months

first teeth: age 9 months

What we gained

• communication among multiple caregivers

• tracking helped us maintain perspective

• specificity makes it possible to recognize aberration

• Often, we learned that what we were doing didn’t work. Which meant we could stop doing it, without guilt.

Thanks!results up at www.yasminlucero.net