The pains of recording baby activities!

[popip]

Hello,

I'm a father of a 3 month old boy and a bit of a stats geek. I wanted to record my son's sleep and my wife wanted to record his feeding but we gave up on apps as it was too much of a pain during the night.

We would forget the times and end up just forgetting to update them completely.

My sister in law used pen and paper during the night and updated the app the next day but this sounds like a lot of work to me!

Does anyone feel the same? Does anyone know any shortcuts to make this easier?

We would like the data about his development but don't have the time or energy to commit to getting it.

Russ

[CultureSucksDownWords]

Can I ask why you want the data, what you might use it for?

[popip]

Good question! Well it would be nice to know how many hours he sleeps per day and how well this amount of sleep progresses throughout the week.

He has a problem with gas that wakes him up all the time and we are trying everything we can to help him. If we can have a visual picture of his sleep patterns, we could see the things that improve his sleep and those that do not, which would make our life easier.

Also, just the fact that he is the most important and interesting thing in my life and I want to understand as much about him as possible without faffing on my phone all the time.

[mouldycheesefan]

We used a notebook.
Old fashioned but did the job.
I still have it. It's evidence that some nights we never went to bed at all! Twins!

[CultureSucksDownWords]

Well, if you really want to record the info, I'd think about designing a single sheet on which you could record all the information that you're looking for, in the easiest and quickest way. So maybe for sleep, you could have a timeline of 24 hours, and simply shade in when he sleeps. Print out enough for a week and fill in as you go, repeat each week. Then, even if you don't have time to transfer the data to an app, you can easily look back and see patterns.

My actual advice would be not to record anything unless you have a medical need to. It's a waste of time that could be spent sleeping or resting, plus it can cause anxiety if things change (which they will).

[ooosaidooo]

At most use a pen and paper but best of all bin the stats and use your instincts. Get in tune with him, feel and sense how happy or settled he is. Sometimes more sleep does not = more happiness for a baby, on day he may have less sleep but have spent several hours on your lap being cuddled...there is no app to measure that sort of thing.

What advice has your health visitor given about the wind? DS had wind, he liked to be upright so being in the sling helped and made him happy. You kind of just 'know' after a while what is working and what is not.

[BisherBasherBosher]

Have you tried the Baby Tracker App? I think it's pretty good. I'm not too religious about using it though. I'm a scatter brain and I find it helps me to remember when I last fed or changed DD, how long she's been asleep for etc.