These worksheets can be printed for your personal use. Just right-click on the links and choose "save link as" to download the PDF.
Feeding and Diapering Log
Keep track of two basic baby functions: intake and output. Eating patterns and diaper contents are indicators of a new baby's health and adjustment to life on the outside. You may want to record this information not at all, for a few days, or a few weeks.
Tips for Use:
- If you use one sheet for more than one 24-hour cycle, you can use a symbol such as * in the date column to indicate a new day.
- If you are record-keeping for more than one baby, use alternating sheets and label each sheet with the baby's name.
- Diaper changes do not need to coincide with feedings. When using the diaper portion of the chart, come up with a system that works for you, such as jotting down the time on the far right side of the page.
Download the Feeding and Diapering Log PDF
Sleep Diary
Babies, especially newborns, often change their sleep patterns and it's possible that sleep won't be organized for many months. However, life with a baby is full of irony: when you think you could least use a chart of any kind, the chart may be the most useful to you. A seeming lack of pattern can be the best time to try charting sleep because you may discover some kind of rhythm where sleep behavior looked chaotic and unpredictable.
If you are trying to change sleep behavior in any way, charting sleep intervals -- and even details such as how baby wakes (cooing, crying etc) -- can show you any changes taking place.
Tips for Use:
- Keep a sleep diary for a minimum of 1 week, best to try for 2 weeks
- Ideas for what to record (left-hand column categories): time of waking, time and duration of naps, total daytime sleep, time baby was put to bed, time of each night waking, what you did during each night waking, total nighttime sleep.
Gift Log
Don't count on remembering details right now such as who gave you the Taggie blanket and who sent the flowers sitting on the kitchen table. The gift log is here to help.
Tips for Use:
- Record shower gifts, new baby gifts, and whether or not you sent a note.
- If you're sending out birth announcements, there is a column for those as well.
- The idea is to have contact information for gift-givers in one convenient place. If that place is your computer, create a gift log there instead.
Daily Income Log
This worksheet is a blank, five-week calendar. For uses, see Chapter 7 of The Baby File where I explain the daily income method.