We all chuckled at childbirth class when our instructor told us that newborn babies basically do three things: eat, sleep, and poop. On a more serious note, however, a lot of the baby books I've been reading have been emphasizing the importance of keeping track of baby's eating, sleeping, and pooping schedule. The eating and pooping schedules help you to know whether he/she is getting enough to eat. The sleeping schedule is invaluable for gradually helping baby develop more regular waking habits -- something that will be crucial for if and when mommy goes back to work (as I plan to do).

So I've been looking around for methods to help me become more organized about recording baby's eating/sleeping/pooping schedule. There are some simple, downloadable templates you can use like this one from about.com: you simply print out several copies and then use that to log your newborn's schedule.

If you're willing to splurge a little bit, Amazon.com has some books especially made for logging baby's eating, sleeping, and pooping schedules. Some of them also contain charts to help you know if your baby is growing according to the recommended rates of growth. Some also have additional charts, like a tooth chart so you can mark when each tooth appeared, or an immunization chart so you can log baby's immunization schedule.


This is the one that I put on my Amazon baby registry because it's straightforward and cheaper than the others.


This one looks interesting too, and has more charts.


This is the only baby feeding journal I could find in any of our local stores (I saw this on the Powerbooks website), but it appears to only be a feeding journal and it doesn't have space for logging pooping and sleeping.

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Another interesting set of products I found, for the O.C. mom, are health journals. While the eat-sleep-poop logs are only for babies, these journals are logbooks where you can record all of your child's health-related information from infancy to pre-adolescence or adolescence. They include pages where you can list down your baby's family history, all physicians' visits, allergies, height and weight development, et cetera, et cetera.


This version from HealthTracks seems to be very complete, but it also seems bulky (about 8" by 8" and an inch and a half thick).


This one seems handier, and easier to lug to the pediatrician's office each time you go for a visit. It's also cheaper.

I checked the National Bookstore, Fully Booked and Powerbooks websites, and other than the "Time to Feed Baby" journal available from Powerbooks, none of the other books seem to be in stock at any of the other stores. However, if you prefer not to buy from Amazon you can ask any of those three bookstores to order the title for you from the US. It should arrive in 4 to 8 weeks, after which you can either pick it up at your branch of choice, or they can deliver it to your home for a shipping fee.