Yes, I guess I do need to go back to work

Since BigFinance's leave policy means no email or calls while I'm out, I have had little to occupy my mind besides Cameron. Hence my obsession with her feeding, pooping and of course, sleeping schedule. By the way, Cameron had her two month doctor's appointment on Tuesday and has gained almost 2 pounds in one month. Yay! That makes me feel very relieved that she is getting enough with just breastfeeding. In bad news she got two shots and one oral vaccine. It would have been 3 shots but I asked to postpone the combo one a week. I didn't feel comfortable having so many different vaccines in one day. My doctor tried to pressure me into doing all 3 shots at one time but I held firm.

Cameron has definitely regulated her naps: one in the morning and two in the afternoon. She goes to bed by 8 PM and has only one wake up at night for a feeding. The reason I know this so well is because I have been tracking her sleep with a daily log. If you are interested (and I can't imagine you would be!) here is the link: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=rsXyxgCkGt0kIYKD61hweBw&output=html

A sleep log is a great way to learn more about your baby. I have been very fortunately with having Cameron on some kind of schedule since she was about two weeks old. But this log helped me to spot new patterns in her sleep and adjust my behaviors accordingly. If you have a baby who doesn't appear to have a "schedule" I think you will find he does have one if you use a sleep log like the one I kept. I didn't use the Quiet or Crying categories very often because I usually let Cameron swing until she falls asleep. Or she'll cry for 5 minutes so it's not worth it to record it.

Cameron is at about 8 hours of wakefulness and 16 hours of sleep. That is right in line with what "experts" recommend. We are struggling a little bit with her first afternoon nap. She falls asleep around 1 PM and should sleep until 3 PM but that doesn't happen unless I swing her a lot or keep running up the stairs for a pacifier insertion. I know that eventually she will eliminate one of the two afternoon naps but I hope it's a while before that happens. Or at least until she stops waking up for a middle of the night feeding!

Here is a nice little graph of Cameron's daily sleep log. I tried to throw in some pivot tables but it would have required a lot of formatting and I'm intellectually bored, but not that bored! I'm sure other moms or dads can put me to shame with your fancy tracking spreadsheets. But for now, I have decided to stop tracking her sleep until she changes her schedule up on me. When did other parents stop tracking your child's activities? Did you find tracking helped you to learn more about your baby?