Baby tracking charts...

I've always thought the people that pay attention to all of this stuff are crazy! Just go with the flow, chill! But then again, I guess you could say I fall under the "super organized person" (aka anal retentive) category. The big issue for me was creating a sleep schedule of some kind. Our child was VERY GOOD (like, sleeping from 9pm-10am) and my fear was that I would mess it up somehow. So my goal was to track what was obviously going so well for her so I could go along with it. There are so many parenting styles out there but one message that seems to be pretty consistent is to have some sort of routine. Really, it's the first opportunity for the babies to start feeling safe. So, in my best attempt to keep the baby on her awesome sleep schedule, I created a chart! Our nanny is always writing everything down in journal form and when I've got a screaming baby, referencing the page of notes was taking too long. Also, it was really good for us to be on the same page about what's going on with her. Of course, once i got the whole thing down to a perfect system, we went to NY and the time change suddenly had her waking at 7am when we got home! No bueno. The whole "charting" thing can be useful over a week or two but really, doing it long-term is just exhausting! So, if you're a "charter", feel free to use my system... It worked quite well for me!