This month my partner and I helped welcome a child into the world and our lives changed dramatically. We had read a few books on childbirth and rearing and took a class to prepare but we didn’t understand just how intense and consuming being a new parent is.

Part of what makes caring for a newborn a full-time job are the regular feedings and diaper changes. While at the hospital, the nurses kept and updated a spreadsheet of times of feedings and dirty diapers as those numbers are an important metric of the newborn’s health. Knowing the baby’s pediatrician would want some idea of the number of daily feedings and diaper changes at least for the first month’s visits, and curious to see if there was some pattern to this input/output cycle, I tried to keep the spreadsheet updated for the first weeks.