From Vincent Iannelli, M.D.,
Your Guide to Pediatrics.
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About.com Health's Disease and Condition content is reviewed by Kate Grossman, MD

When your baby is born, it can be reassuring to know that the nurses are keeping track of your baby's feedings and dirty diapers.

Once you get home, like many parents, you may feel like you are on your own and wonder if your baby is getting enough to eat.

By keeping track of your baby's feedings, whether they are breastfeeding or drinking baby formula, can be a good way to make sure that they are eating enough. In addition, the number of wet and soiled diapers can be a good indication of how well your baby is eating.

Add in a visit to your Pediatrician, who can weigh and examine your baby and review your new baby's daily logs, and you can be either reassured that your baby is feeding well or get an early identification of any possible problems.

Among the things that you can track with our New Baby Daily Logs include your baby's number of:

• breastfeedings
• formula feedings if you are not breastfeeding
• wet diapers
• soiled diapers

It is important to note that the area for recording the amount of baby formula is not meant to imply that breastfeeding babies should be supplemented with formula. In fact, they usually should not be given formula unless you are instructed to do so by your Pediatrician and/or a lactation consultant. Instead, it is so that formula babies can also use the log.

And you can add notes of any other important information, like if your baby is fussy, whether or not you are pumping, and your baby's weight.

Remember that your newborn baby should be:

• breastfeeding 8-12 times a day
• OR eating 2-3 ounces of formula every 3-4 hours if you have decided not to breastfeed
• having 6 or more wet diapers by day 5-7
• having 3-4 loose yellow stools by day 5-7 if you are breastfeeding
• gaining about 2/3 of an ounce a day after day 5-7 and get back to his birth weight by the time he is 2 weeks old (although he likely lost 5-7 percent of his birth weight those first 5-7 days)

View the New Baby Daily Logs.