We know exactly how many poops Colin has taken since he has come home.
We know precisely how many ounces of formula Ava has eaten. We know how many diapers have been changed, we know the times-of-day of every feeding they've ever had, and we even know the amount of time - to the minute - each baby sleeps on a daily basis.
We not only know how many minutes they've breastfed, we know on which breast!
How do we know all this? We write everything down in The Notebook! Actually, we're on our second notebook at this point, having already filled the first one with information. We write down overnight sleep and waking times, start and end times of each nap for each baby, times of feedings and # of ounces (which we orginally were measuring down to the milliliter), minutes breastfed, and each pleasant occurrence of poop and pee.
Here is an example page from this past Saturday featuring "Chubbs" (Colin) and "Angel Face" (Ava) - they get different handles every day....
As you can see here, this was a big poop day - double doubles, certainly a rare treat. Colin woke up at 3:45am and was breastfed - on the Left breast - for 5 minutes. Colin totalled 28.5 ounces of breastmilk/formula and Ava tallied up 24.5 - a pretty good day. Plus, "RC" (rice cereal) after the 4/4:30 bottles. Colin banged out a 2-hour nap from 11:30-1:30 and slept quite a bit that day, Ava napped a little less.
Crazy overkill? No doubt. Maybe it's Mommy the Scientist that wants to record all this information, but we've found the main reason comes down to what we call "Mommy Brain" and "Daddy Brain" - we simply don't remember anything. Due to lack of sleep and the introduction of what amounts to two new full-time jobs, we can't remember the last time WE ate, much less them. So whenever we ask each other when the last time so-and-so did such-and-such, we can just consult The Notebook.
Who knows how long we'll keep doing this but, for now, we'd feel a little lost without it.
4 comments:
After about 3 weeks I abandoned the notebook (or sheets in our case) but our nanny keeps daycare sheets for us. I'm going to post the form soon if you want to use it for your kids. You are definitely a scientist to write it all down.
Dude, we only made it 3 days keeping that level of detail. I think the notebook went out the window when EVERY diaper was wet and EVERY diaper was poopy...a phase that thankfully ended after a few months. I'll admit it would probably have helped me feel more in control but it has also been very liberating to decide...hey, does it really matter?
Yup, we're nuts!
We know it's crazy overkill and we'll get over it eventually.
I must admit, we've been using a notebook since the day chloe was born!! We still use it today!! Too funny. I'm so glad we're not alone! ;)
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