When Baby Markers was born, I was determined to have all our ducks in a row from day one. I wanted to make sure I was doing everything perfectly – exactly how the pediatrician recommended, exactly what the books and websites say is “best” to do.


Holding my eight-day-old baby with not a clue in the world what I was doing, but loving every minute.

I used the Sprout Baby app for iPhone from the beginning, timing her feedings at exactly 3 hours apart, marking every diaper change and recording her naps down to the minute. I obsessed over websites, consulting google at all hours of the night to make sure my baby’s habits were “normal.” Our doctor and lactation consultant recommended that she eat every 3 hours for about 25 minutes each time, and that I could expect 3 poopy diapers and 7-8 wet diapers per day.  I recorded this information religiously to make sure she was hitting her quotas each day.

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Around 5 or 6 weeks, Baby Markers began to have longer awake times during the day but she had yet to sleep more than 6 hours straight at night.  She’s never been a particularly fussy baby, and even when I know she’s hungry she will squawk a bit but wait patiently for me to feed her.  Even though I wanted to try and extend her night-time sleep, I stuck to my self-imposed schedule and continued to consult the books and Google to make sure I was doing everything “right.” I assumed that the closer we got to perfection, with each day replicating that last, we’d see an improvement.

One day, my phone died. I freaked out, because how could I possibly feed her without recording it on my trusty app?! Then I realized I was being ridiculous. I fed her and did not record it (the horror!). I just let her eat until she seemed like she was done. Later on that day, I didn’t have my phone near me when she was ready to eat again, so I fed her again and did not record it. Shockingly, we survived!

The next day I quit using the app completely. For the next week, instead of watching the clock – I watched my baby. When she was hungry, I fed her. When she seemed full, I stopped. Sometimes this meant she ate every hour, sometimes she went over 4 hours without eating. I changed her diaper when necessary and when she got tired, I rocked her or laid her down for a nap, without checking the app to see if it was “time.” I noticed that she was napping better and longer, but she was also eating more frequently during the day. In the mornings she seemed to want to cluster feed, and then eat more frequently again at the end of the day. I never recorded any of it, and just responded to her needs accordingly throughout the day.

After another week of our new approach, something miraculous happened – she slept through the night! We put her down around 8pm and she woke once at 3:30am… I gave her a pacifier instead of getting her up completely. She took it and went right back to sleep until 5:30am. After weeks of getting up 2-3 times a night, I was elated to get that much sleep!

I realized that in my quest for so-called perfection, my baby wasn’t getting exactly what she needed, when she needed it.  As soon as I let go and stopped trying to implement a regimented schedule, life improved for all of us. As a first time mom, I only wanted to do what was best, which I thought I would learn from the books and blogs. Life with a newborn is extremely stressful and confusing, and my Type-A personality assumed the answer was in the perfect schedule, replicated day-in and day-out. So not the case for us! Sometimes she wants to eat more, sometimes she wants to eat less. Some days she hates naps, other days she seems to sleep all day. As soon as I started to go with the flow, everything fell right into place.

As it turns out, my child was the only one who could tell me what was best for her and all I needed to do was relax, open my eyes, and she would let me know. Obvious, right?