Hospitals send you home with a folder. Almost none of it tells you what to write down at 3am when you cannot remember if the last feed was 40 minutes ago or two hours ago.

Here is the short list that actually helps in the first 12 weeks — and the stuff you can ignore.

Write these down

• Feeds: time, side or bottle, roughly how long. Not millilitres to the drop.

• Sleep: yours and the baby's, in chunks, not a perfect schedule.

• Wet/dirty diapers once a day so you can answer the pediatrician without guessing.

• Your own pain, bleeding, mood, and whether you ate. You are a patient too.

• Questions for the next appointment, the second they pop into your head.

• Who to call at 2am: pediatrician, lactation, partner, neighbor, emergency.

You can skip these in week 1

• Color-coded milestones.

• A perfect budget spreadsheet.

• Guest-ready house lists.

• Comparing your baby to a chart on your phone.

The goal is not a beautiful binder. The goal is a paper trail so you can sleep for 20 minutes without holding the whole day in your head.

That is the job of a fourth-trimester kit. Print two pages. Fill them in badly. That still counts.