The Trixie Update

In addition to the shots received last Thursday, Trixie got weighed at the doctor’s office. The new numbers confirm Jennifer’s assertion that babies do not maintain geometric growth beyond the first 4-6 weeks. In fact, Trixie gained less than two pounds in her second month, throwing off my previous one-year estimate of 779 lbs. But now, taking into account an extra month of data, I feel confident to release a new one-year weight extrapolation of 67 lbs. This estimate is still, of course, much too high, and her rate of growth will hopefully decrease in the coming months, or we can look forward to celebrating Trixie’s 1st birthday with a big fat case of diabetes. At any rate she currently weighs in at 10lbs 13oz. and is 23 1/4″ long, placing her above the 50th percentile for her age group.

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There’s really not much more to say. Well, actually, let me clarify (in order to head-off the confused and incredulous emails in my inbox), Trixie did not use 600 diapers yesterday, but rather exceeded that number cumulatively.

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What were you doing 10 a.m. September 13th, 2003? We were changing Trixie’s 500th diaper. 500 diapers. Five Hundred. Trixie hit this milestone on her 44th day in this world. I shouldn’t be surprised, because I knew she was averaging more than 11 a day leading up to that point. Still, it’s shocking to see such a large number. And that number will, of course, grow into the thousands by the end of the first year. Even if she stabilizes at 6 diapers a day starting today, we are looking at 2,448 by 7/31/04. At 8 a day it will be 3,072. If the average climbs to 10 a day, it will be a mind-blowing 3,686 diapers before she even turns one year old.

You get better at changing diapers, but it’s an evolutionary struggle. She’s constantly growing and requires more milk which leads to an increase in the scale of waste. And just as a balance is struck in managing these changes, she’s grown into a new diaper size and you’re temporarily back to square one.

However, all things considered, life has gotten easier as the number of diapers that cause major laundry or clean-up problems have proportionally decreased. These “Hassle Diapers,” which can be either poopy OR wet diapers that have spilled out, can be seen leveling off when compared to the cumulative diaper totals [see above].

On a monthly scale the diaper hassle picture is constantly improving. But the “Cumulative Diaper Totals” chart is misleading because on a day-to-day basis the development hasn’t been nearly as smooth or predictable. The true on-the-ground picture of the diaper struggle is messy, erratic and random [see below]. This daily time-series reveals improvement, but details the setbacks and relapses along the way.

The trend that becomes evident in “The Diminishing Diaper Hassle” chart is that it’s not the number of diapers that matters; it’s the amount of inconvenience involved. You can change 15 diapers in one day, but if nothing leaks or spills out, it’s not that big a deal. Conversely, you could have only 5 daily diapers, but if each one explodes all over the couch, you get a little worn down. Eventually, the blue area should whittle away to nothing, marking the point that diaper duty becomes an invisible, non-issue. This almost occurred for a single day on both September 5th and 12th, when there was only 1 diaper rated “Hassle” on each day.

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I realize now that some of the belly button images from our previous story might be a little graphic, especially since they were presented without any context. Not wanting to appear sensationalist, here’s a little bit about the images.

1) Hard to believe, but that gelatinous yellow blob is the umbilical cord. I cut it. It’s made of an incredibly tough, resilient material, sort of like a garden hose. Please note that there is also a large, yellow, plastic clamp visible in the picture.

2) The blob was cut down when they brought her back to us and Trixie sported the reduced stump for about two and a half weeks. In this shot you can see the thin plastic clamp that had been crimped to the stump after the blob was cut down. We cared for it by wiping with alcohol once a day.

3) This next picture was taken right after the stump accidentally pulled off during a routine diaper change. It looks raw and painful, but it didn’t hurt her, and it only took a day to 4) visibility improve in appearance. Over the next three weeks it continued to 5) reduce in size and 6) tuck in. And that’s where belly buttons come from.

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It took a couple of weeks, but Trixie now officially has a cute little “innie”.
Note: the next post provides some context for this image.

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Trixie stopped freaking out at the patterned images a long time ago. She’s still very interested in most of the them, but now in a controlled, deliberate manner. So what’s the verdict? What does she like best? While this survey of her preferences was not conducted in a rigorous manner, there were a few images that seemed to interest her above others. The common thread is surprising simple: a strong figure/ground relationship makes the cut. Images containing high black-to-white ratios fared well also. Mouse over this link to see which pictures she prefers. Among the winners, she likes the face best of all. A second set of images is now being created to test these results.

For more information: Actual research regarding Perceptual Development was conducted by Fantz (1961). His work indicates that babies really do have a Visual Preference for Faces. Thanks to Schaffer for this link.

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Trixie had her one month check-up yesterday and got weighed and measured. She is currently 9lbs. She has increased her mass by almost 50% over the past 30 days! This level of growth astounds me. If she were to maintain this level for a year, she would weigh 779 lbs by age one [see below]. Fortunately, Jennifer has assured me that babies do not maintain geometric growth levels beyond the first month or two. At any rate, she is at the 50th percentile for weight and 95th for height.

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This is the final presentation of all breast feeding data that was collected before we realized it was no longer helpful in monitoring Trixie’s milk intake. In the end we had collected about two weeks worth of data, and I compiled it into a graphic representation of Trixie’s feeding habits.

This is what it looks like when it’s all pulled together [see above] — a snapshot of Trixie’s nursing habits for a 24 hour period. Each individual feeding is plotted on the blue area, along with the duration and her mood at that feeding. The pink bar indicates the total minutes nursed that day and the green graph depicts how those minutes were obtained.

Explanation of Chart Elements
The green graph is the “Daily Feeding Density” [see below]. A quick glance at this graph reveals how efficient Trixie was at feeding on that particular day. Did she focus and nurse for 10-20 minutes at a time or fruit around and waste the whole day with 5 minute sessions?

For example, compare the density graphs from August 17th and August 20th [see below]. She fed for almost the exact same time on both days (see the pink numbers), but she did it much more efficiently on the 20th obtaining her daily requirement with half as many nursing sessions.

Tracking Trixie’s Nursing Habits
The blue chart depicts Trixie’s “Feeding Cycle” [see below]. Each individual feeding is plotted across the 24 hour spectrum with the night and day cycle represented as a gradient. Scanning the chart quickly reveals feeding clusters, isolated meals and the occasional spit-up. The length of the feeding determines the size of the bubble. Her mood at any particular feeding is reflected on the y-axis on a scale of “fussy” to “good”.

These two charts from August 19th and 26th illustrate two patterns. First, the 19th was just one day during a long week when Trixie’s feeding mood plummeted in the evening setting the stage for a long and exhausting nightly ordeal. Second, by the 26th Trixie discovered the concept of comfort feeding. Her mood at every single feeding was rated “good”. She loved nursing and would have done it for 250 minutes a day if we would let her. Incidentally this is the last chart in the series because we realized that the data no longer reflected her food intake.

The Final Product
That’s how the charts work. For more fun, check out the whole two weeks animated over time or stacked in a series. Why display the data in different formats? The animated series is entertaining, but the stacked series makes it easier to compare values across different days.

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The data collected here was extremely helpful during the first 8 days as it predicted an average of about 133 minutes daily nursing. However, once Trixie stumbled across the idea of using Jennifer as a human pacifier, everything is thrown out the window. Even after we constrained the 200 plus minute feedings, we were unable to discount comfort feeding. We are no longer collecting this type of data.

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Accurately recording Trixie’s breast feeding activity has proven impossible. She is clearly eating plenty based on the sheer amount of waste generated, but she acts like she’s starving and frantically makes the hand in mouth gesture all the time.

We’ve resorted to giving her a bottle of breast milk in the evening hours to try to determine if she’s really hungry. She takes the bottle great and will swallow a ton and then we’ll top her off later on. So far this approach has worked pretty well and prevented her from spiraling into a screaming frenzy.

The downside from a information perspective is that the “minutes nursed” charts are meaningless. She is clearly comfort nursing. She currently needs about 20 oz. of milk a day and she’s getting 4-5 by the bottle. Aside from this 25/75 ratio there’s not much more of interest regarding her intake. Waste however, is another story. Charts are forthcoming.

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