So when Kaiden was first born, I got into the habit of tracking his intakes and outtakes.
It was something that our hospital told us to do while we were in the hospital those first couple days, and it was just something that stuck. I was going to do a post about these when I was actually using them religiously, but enough time passed that it didn’t feel relevant. But, now it’s relevant again.
I started by writing everything down, but that quickly got tough. Since I was breastfeeding, it wasn’t easy to always grab the pen and paper to record what time and how long and what boob I was using.
That’s when I started to look for a baby app to use. Makes sense right? I’m always on my phone – especially when I was breastfeeding. Nothing else to do while I sat there for 15 minutes and when he used to fall asleep while doing it.
I started using one baby app (I can’t even remember the name of it) but since it was a free version it didn’t really allow you to keep track of certain things after 2 weeks. I then switched to the Glow Baby app (which I highly recommend). It’s free, but there is a premium version that unlocks a bunch of tracking/graph stuff but for the bare bone it’s fantastic.
The timer for breastfeeding was a highlight. You could choose what side, hit start and stop and it timed it all for you. No more looking at the clock! I was using it to clock every pee, poop, feed, and sleep.
I won’t lie, I’m probably a little obsessed with it.
Now that Kaiden is 11 months (yesterday), I was obsessively asking so that I could fill in my chart and Andrew was just like, “I think you can probably stop with the app now…” I stared at him aghast. Give up my obsessive charting tendencies? I’ve been doing it for so long I don’t know how to wean myself off filling in all the information.
I’ve actually done cold turkey now. It’s tough to look at my chart and see all these empty spaces. Even more so to see the information say “it’s been over 12 hours since his last…” A part of me is still a little edgy to not be filling in any information (“But what if something happens and I need to look back at his records!”) and a part of me is just relieved to not be obsessively tracking everything.
I still keep a little tally in my mind. But for the most part, the only reason Kaiden makes a fuss is that he’s hungry or tired. And usually, those go hand in hand so it makes it pretty easy!
Did you use any apps during baby’s first year? Or beyond? I think I’m ready to move to my Promptly Journal for the rest of the details!
J x
