The Trixie Update

As I have stated many times before on this site, sleep is really the only thing that new parents want. They want their baby to sleep and they want to be able to sleep themselves. And they want both to happen in big 8-10 hour chunks. (We still suffer from a sleep deficit stretching back 8 months.) In my quest to understand and try to crack Trixie’s sleep code, I introduce yet another way to quantify her sleep habits: The Sleep Probability Spectrum.

The Sleep Probability chart is simply an average of Trixie’s daily Sleep Maps for a given set of days. The averages are translated to a gray-scale spectrum. The stronger the contrast, and the larger the pattern, the more predictable her sleep habits for the time period examined. It’s designed to collapse a range of time into 10-minute increments on a 24 hour scale in order to figure out if there are any patterns developing.

The probability of Trixie being asleep at a particular time of day for the given range of days is expressed as a gray-scale value. Solid black represents a 100% probability that she was asleep. Solid white means a 100% probability that she was awake. The gray areas represent different degrees of uncertainty regarding her sleep schedule. 50% gray indicates a complete lack of schedule. It means there was an equal (or completely random) chance of her being awake or asleep.

What kind of predictive value do these Probability Spectrums have? Unfortunately not as much as I’d I hoped - or at least I haven’t figured out a way to apply them yet. But they are great for looking back at her progress over the past five months. Of course, when you start at the bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up.

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Almost all the recent posts and comments on the site have been about the site itself as opposed to Trixie. Just wanted to let people know that there are a couple of stories (including one with a brand new type of chart) lined up in the wings, and that we’ll soon get back to doing what we do best - making sure that Trixie is properly documented.

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Interested in setting up Telemetry for your baby? Good news! We’re working on making it a reality. The Trixie code has quietly been under development for a while now. But due to the recent demand, we are accelerating our schedule and wanted to give you an update.

The Trixie code will be available as an inexpensive service designed for anyone with an Internet connection — no programming required. We are also hoping to document the code and allow a free distribution for those who want to hack their own solution.

We will be making a detailed announcement on May 15th, 2004. So stay tuned to the Trixie Update.

[UPDATE] It’s now May 15th. We have created a new site to answer questions and keep you informed as we continue to develop the software. Please visit http://www.trixietracker.com for details.

On a personal note, I would like to say that I am sensitive to the timing of this announcement given the flurry of activity on the site — specifically in regard to this very code.

There’s no good way around it. I designed Telemetry to help out with some of the specific challenges I encountered taking care of Trixie. Once built, I realized that other parents might also appreciate it. The code has been under development for some time, and we were planing to release it much later in the year. The current spike in traffic has generated a huge surge in emails and comments concerning the telemetry code. Making an announcement at this time is the most straightforward way to address all these questions.

I hope our readers will understand and not feel that we are taking advantage of the good will generated by all of our new visitors. We really appreciate the attention that has come our way and are flattered that so many have taken an interest in Trixie, our family, and her diapers.

All the best,
Ben and Jennifer

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Trixie doesn’t have an opinion about whether we log her diapers — but you do! Weigh in on the controversy in the latest Trixie poll!

 
include_once "/home/trixie3/public_html/poll/booth.php";
$php_poll->set_template_set(”plain”);
$php_poll->set_max_bar_length(125);
$php_poll->set_max_bar_height(10);
echo $php_poll->poll_process(12);
?>

 

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I’d like to welcome all the new visitors to the Trixie Update. We’re experiencing a tremendous traffic spike thanks in large part to this very flattering link on metafilter.com.

I know that a lot of people are interested in the Telemetry and the seemingly immense effort required to record so many events on a daily basis. I want to assure everyone that it’s not the labor-intensive operation you might imagine. If it weren’t easy, I wouldn’t do it. Taking care of a baby is enough work in itself.

Also, despite the objective tone we strike with the content of this site, we love our daughter. So please don’t call child services claiming that we keep her locked up in an acrylic cage with all sorts of monitoring and recording devices hooked up to her. Just because we don’t use words like “cutie pootie”, “adorable” or “coochie-coo” doesn’t mean we’re bad parents.

Lastly, some readers have inquired about the code that runs the site. We are working to make the code available in some form in the future (it’s a matter of free time - I do have a baby to care for.) Please check back or email us if you would like to be notified.

UPDATE You can now visit www.trixietracker.com for more information

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Next week is Bath Week on the Trixie Picture of the Day. Come join us for 5 days of wet and wild TPODs starting Monday.

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Why did the mere act of standing upright elicit such a reaction of terror in Trixie as seen in the TPOD from March 24th (photo taken March 4th?)

For Trixie, standing up that tall - even with support - was a little like being at the top of a roller coaster. It took her a while to slowly pull up that high, and once there, the view was exciting and new. But just like fairgoers poised to plummet as they ease over the top of the hill, Trixie started to freak about how she was going to get down. She would shriek and howl in terror because she was totally stuck.

The problem was that she hadn’t figured out how to release and climb down (or even release and fall) and so she had to be rescued every time.
But then — just like any good thrill-seeker — as soon as I’d help her down, she’d start climbing right back up again.

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Trixie has been pulling herself up and standing for about a month now. Maybe a little longer, I can’t remember anymore. Once she became vertically mobile — in addition to horizontally mobile — she demanded 10 times the attention. There’s been no time for written documentation. I miss the days when she would just lie on the floor like a slug. Those were good times.

Now she clambers over everything in the apartment. She grabs hold of doors, walls, corners and furniture. She’s most fond of grabbing at your pant legs to try to pull herself up, because she naturally wants to be exactly where you are. Unfortunately, she’ll also grab at your bare legs. This is an excruciating experience because her fingers are tiny, icy, little daggers. This is mostly because her hands are constantly in her mouth, therefore constantly wet, and the slobber evaporates leaving her hands cold as marble. There’s no good solution for this - even if you put gloves on her they would be soaking wet in 5 minutes. I’m looking forward to warmer weather or to her standing up on her own, whichever comes first.

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We’ve been taking a beating on the comments board, over the phone and in person - it’s time to make another apology for the lack of posts. There are lots of good excuses; most have to do with Jennifer’s horrific call schedule. I’ve been trying to keep a skeleton version of the site running, but we’ve also had to cut back the TPOD to just five days a week. Anyway, we’re aware of the problem, and working to catch up.

P.S. there’s a new poll.

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Trixie has finished her medicine, and she has no problem showing us what she thought of it.

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