Some hope for new parents!

[UpToMyElbowsInDiapers]

I was just going through my “BabyTracker” app, which I used with my DC3 because I’m a total data nerd. I found what his first month of life looked like, vs his tenth month. The green is sleeping - in his first month, it was all over the map in short bursts, usually on top of me; while by 10 months he was sleeping through the night (mostly) in his own crib. The first month, I was breastfeeding (represented in orange) what felt like ENDLESSLY… by the 10th month it was mostly morning and evening and was often a highlight of my day.

I thought I’d post the visual here, because I think sometimes people don’t fully recognize how relentless the early days are and don’t know what to expect or don’t think to support new mums. But equally, I think being a new mum and in the thick of it, it can be hard to imagine that you’ll ever sleep or feel like yourself again. Here is some visual proof!

This is incredible!! How does it pick the data up? Or did you input it during the time?

New parents should be shown this! I love hearing people say things like "it'll get easier" or "they grow out of that phase fast". A lot of chat about babies and sleeping during the start is so negative (to some extent that's expected as it's so difficult at the beginning) that you can feel there's no end in sight.

Yeah, I input the data manually at the time (start time, stop tune). To some people that would seem like a hassle, but honestly I found it helpful for 1) remembering what side I last fed from, 2) beginning to see trends towards dropping a nap or shifting a bedtime, 3) generating these visuals so that I could be kind to myself on days when I didn’t get much done (because DC didn’t sleep for longer than two hours and fed for 7.5, for example!)

I didn't track sleep initially as I think it would drive me demented but you've made me look at my DS

Month 1 v month 6.

Expecting DS2 shortly this has just reminded me what fun.....

Haha what fun indeed… but again, look at that shift in the feeding pattern over five months. The crazy period is intense, but it really doesn’t last forever.

Congrats on DC2! 😁