While feeding the babies last night, I had this idea. Why not make an excel sheet where you can keep track of the baby’s feeding and sleeping activities on day to day basis. It would probably help you understand your baby’s needs better and may be give you some insights.
Here is a baby feeding chart (or baby feeding journal) I have prepared:
How is the Baby Feeding Chart Made?
- Make a grid of 365 x24 cells
- In each cell, Enter letter “F” if your baby is fed in that hour, “S” for sleeping, “P” for playing and “C” for crying.
- Go check on your baby, see if the nappy needs a change.
- Comeback and apply some conditional formatting to highlight the cell in different color for each of the activities.
- That is all. Your baby feeding chart is ready.
Download the baby feeding chart Excel
Click here to download the baby feeding chart in Excel. [For excel 2003 click here].
Do you find the baby feeding chart useful?
We are not finding time to sleep with both the babies keeping us busy all the time. So I don’t think Jo is all excited to use this feeding journal. But may be you can find it useful. Do tell me if you find this useful.
15 Responses to “Baby Feeding Chart using Excel”
Mine are old enough that recording feeds is no longer of value, but I can see how your journal could be helpful for those who have their PCs on anyway...
Hope the sleeping improves. 🙂
When the baby cries, feeds and sleeps during a given hour, which one have you been tracking?
@Ron: I would probably be too freaked out to even track it. But most likely it would be "F".
Hello from Moscow, Russia! And glad you're doing well with your new duties!
I've done some work, when my daughter was brought to the world.
Made 3 docs in Google Docs for Weight, Height and Giggles, 2 charts for first 2 docs and gathered all the data in the Google Site along with the Picasa slideshows. Here's a translated version of the site:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=ru&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fsites.google.com%2Fsite%2F4ephobs%2F
And the offline version in excel:
http://projects.excelstyle.ru/GetFile.aspx?File=MyChild%5cMyChild_en.zip
Hope, all the references are here after the translation from russian.
Once again, great post !
something for the future, as a father of a 1-year old son, is the ability to summarize sleeping and feeding hours per week and weekend (maybe combining your older post about switching charts?)
Rgds.
Chandoo, I had to laugh when I saw this post. As a new father with a fondness for Excel, it was probably only a matter of time before this happened.
However, as a father of 3 daughters, can I tell you, in my experience, just as soon as you think you have worked out some sort of pattern, everything will change, and you'll have to start all over again. Perhaps some sort of PivotTable would be useful (only because I can't figure out PivotTables at all, just like my daughters!) 😉
Good luck, and just so you know, the sleeplessness will probably get better, eventually.
You forgot a "D" , with all that feeding going on there has to be some discharging!
LOL! way too much time to think when you're feeding the nippers!
I kind of like the idea but not for the feeding so gonna apply it to the older kids when sorting out the housework routine!
Let ya know if it works!
Have to agree with TheQ24's post where he mentioned that once you work out a routine, something else turns up & cocks everything up...usually the mother-in-law!
I think, you should also track the parent sleeping chart along with this 😉 lol. It will be a lot of data entry on hourly basis, best train ur babies to do this what say?
And beware my Boy just kicks all sorts of statistics and predictions by changing his patterns every month and some times in weeks too :). Some changes are good for me as he started smiling and crying only when feeding is needed 🙂 some are not as he started playing in night times these days and urging my attention for playing else he cries!!
If breast feeding, it might pay to use FL for Feeding Left, and FR for Right.
Or you could use the alternative our Midwife suggested - gentlemen should buy a very expensive jewel-encrusted bangle for their wives to wear on their arm that is closest to the breast they last used to feed baby. At the next feed, check where the bangle is, and use the other side. (Also, don't forget to change the bangle from one hand to the other).
Me being a cheapskate, I'd opt for Excel.
Great post Chandoo! This is a creative and interesting use of Excel. I will definitely pass it along to my friends with newborns!
Cheers,
Andy
MSFT Office Outreach Team
http://www.facebook.com/office
@TheQ47: You are right. Babies grow very rapidly and change almost every week. If anything, this journal should confirm that.
And no, pivot tables will probably not help you much. Good luck figuring out the little ones 🙂
@JohnC: Good point. Unfortunately, we cant put a time on it unless the baby is cloth diapered or we are closely watching her.
@Pip: You can use the same idea to track workouts, measure blood pressure, allergy patterns, blood sugar levels or anything else that is vital to track.
@Naga: The parental sleep patterns are very obvious if you look at our eyes (and the sockets :P)
@Jeff: I must delete your comment before my wife finds this godawful suggestion given by your midwife. Did you tease your midwife by pointing out mistakes in the "infact growth chart" in her office. Otherwise, why would she resort to such a lavish punishment?
Btw, in our case, the two little ones get one breast each, so no point keeping track of that 😀
@Andy: Thank you 🙂
Hi Chandoo!
Great stuff. My kid is 17 months old, so sleeping is much better :))
A suggestion is to track height and weight progress and have the growth curves compared to the median growth curve... You may also want to track the diaper change, you'll have a lot of it in the beginning...
Good luck and courage!
Val
You should also consider Diaper Changes. Which letter would you designate for Pees and Poops? The Conditional Formatting colors seem to be obvious for this category.
@Val.. the sheet has an option to keep track of weight. I will add height as well. thanks for the wishes 🙂
@George: Lol.. yes, the colors are obvious. I had to limit the conditional formats since I wanted to give an excel 2003 friendly download as well. But if you have Excel 2007, you can add as many colors as possible.