a busy mom
and her bullet journal
Today I'm going to be sharing the bullet-journal version of the baby tracker I used when my daughter was a newborn with some additions. As soon as my daughter was born, I realized that she was not a baby who would cry that much. If you have children, you know that crying is the way they have to communicate when something is bothering them: A wet diaper, hunger, over-stimulation, boredom, hot, cold, etc. Eventually, you start even learning the different cries a baby may have. The way a baby cries when hungry is not the same way he or she may cry when wet. My daughter was no exception to that; however, she was, for most part, a very content and happy baby. She didn't cry much and she didn't cry at all when she needed a diaper change. Now that she just turned 2 years old, she still doesn't cry or anything when she needs a diaper change. In fact, the only way you know that she needs a clean diaper is because of the "beautiful" smell trace she leaves behind and wherever she goes. Therefore, I realized soon after she was born that I was going to need a system to track down her nature calls, as well as feedings (the latter, to keep my own sanity since I was breastfeeding, pumping, and supplementing with formula.) I soon became overwhelmed. I didn't have enough breast-milk and I soon after I found myself juggling breast pump, bottles, formula, and breast-feeding. Plus the fact that she didn't complain about diapers being dirty or wet, I was more tired of trying to remember what was next than anything else. In fact, I would even forget to feed myself many, many times. My tracker at the time was a PDF printout I had found somewhere on the Internet. I was keeping them in a folder and I would take them to the pediatrician's on our visits. Unfortunately, I was always misplacing them. It had four columns:
At the bottom of each of the Feedings, Diaper Changes, and Sleep columns was a space for totals (# feedings, # wet diapers, # poopy diapers, # hours slept), as well as notes. The Mom's Day column had space for notes and nothing more. Had I known about the bullet journal back then, and after so many trials and errors with my original one, which I had adapted to my own needs, this is how I would have created this tracker: Baby Day Tracker
The next two columns on the right page are reserved to describe mommy's day and a column for notes or general journaling. The six boxes at the bottom are reserved for more notes concerning feedings, diapering, sleep patterns, anything new or worth mentioning that might have happened during the day, a space to jot down medicine intake (mommy, baby, or both,) and lastly, a space to jot down important things to tell daddy, the doctor, or anything else mommy might want to remember. The tracker can be kept minimalist. Based on my own experience, the only thing I wanted to do back then with a young baby was to sleep whenever I could. However, not two pregnancies are equal and other moms might want to give way to their creative side. Another alternative to this layout would be to use the left page for the morning and the right page for the afternoon, in case you may want to break it down by half hours instead of full hours like I did here. Another option would be to completely forgo the time column, which would give you a couple more columns and then the bath time column would fit on the same page. In this case, you would have to write down the time for when you did what by the corresponding entry in the appropriate column. Either way, I hope you found this idea useful and can get you started with your own baby daily tracker if you are in search for one and you stumbled upon my blog. Thank you for reading this post! Supplies
2 Comments
28/11/2016 07:38:59 pm
I love this Tracker! I came across your post on Pinterest! It has everything I need to track our New Squish!
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Hello! I'm Lia and I help curate content for Bullet Journal. I came across your blog post and thought it would make a great addition to the site that could show parents in the BuJo community how they can use their BuJo to stay on top of things. Let me know if you're interested in having your content featured.
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AuthorMother, daughter, wife, full-time project manager, semi-pro photographer, certified Spanish translator, and even self-taught plumber and electrician when needed. Yes, you will see me more frequently at Lowe's than at any other store. Archives
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