How this works 

This chart is for your first, often difficult, week of nursing.  You need to call if you don't meet the number in the GOAL column.

Day 1 is the first 24 hours of your new baby's life.  Day 2 is the second 24 hours, and so on. 

The numbers across the top are the hours in the day.  You'll notice that there isn't any place to chart long long the baby fed on each breast.  That was done on purpose.  It isn't the length of time, but the quality of the feeding that counts. My son and I both have a bowl of Cocoa Puffs every morning, the same amount, in the same size bowl.  It takes him like 20 minutes to finish off the bowl, whereas I inhale it in about 45 seconds.  It's the same bowl of Cocoa Puffs.

The goal of 8 times feedings is so that mom gets stimulation on her breasts every 3 hours.  I think we talk out of both sides of our mouths as medical professionals-- we tell you to feed "on demand" and then say make sure the baby eats every 3 hours.  The "every three hours" is important because we are trying to get mom's level of prolactin, the hormone that makes milk, up to levels where she can sustain lactation for as long as she chooses.  Prolactin is stimulated by suckling at the breast and the level starts to fall after about 3 hours.  The level of prolactin starts to plateau after about 2-3  weeks, so we can let the baby and mom go a little longer between feedings then.

Since we don't care how long the baby stays on, and we want to make sure that mom's nipples get stimulated every 3 hours, you just have to check off the hour in which the baby feeds, making sure we get 8 feedings a day.

Wet diapers- pretty self-explanatory.  We should see one wet diaper on day 1, 2 on day 2, 3 on day 3, up to about 6 on day and after.

Stools  This column tells you the color and amount to expect each day.  The stool needs to be bigger than a 50 cent piece in order to count.  We should have yellow stool on day 4 if all's going well.