Over the last few months, I have noticed a change. Quite a small change, some would think, but quite an important one in my recovery from anxiety. I have weaned myself off the baby app that I used to record everything. (It’s called “Feed Baby” if anyone is interested in finding it).

You know the type. The one that lets you record feed times/lengths/amounts, nappy changes and whether it was wet and/or dirty etc. I used mine religiously. Initially I wanted to record my pumping schedule whilst still in the NICU and then got carried away with it. Normal mums maybe just record breastfeeds on it to remember which boob comes next. I was obsessed with making sure he was having enough milk and then food once he started solids. And when I say obsessed, I mean, obsessed.

The app would let you input how many millilitres he drank so I would measure what he drank, how much he left in the bottle and I even had a measuring jug to hand instead of a sick bowl for him to puke into so I knew exactly how much I would need to replace.

I would do the same with food. I would weigh the plate at the start and when he’d had enough and input the amount of grams he’d eaten and what it was. I would make sure he had at least 10 grams as that was the minimum you could log.

I recorded every nappy change, every pee and poo. I recorded his temperature when he was under the weather and his medicines, what given and what time. I’d put his weight and height in there too, even though it goes in his red book too. When he was still in the NICU, every morning I’d check his chart and input what I’d missed overnight.

I was obsessed with a phrase I had unfortunately found online. “Failure To Thrive”. Jack was never great at putting on weight and even at 22 months old (19.5 months corrected age) he is only 20 lb 11 oz wearing 12-18m clothes. Everytime Denise the NICU Health Visitor said he hadn’t put on as much as she hoped, I’d panic and have visions of him in hospital with the dreaded label I’d found. And it fuelled by need to log everything.

And yet, as time passed, I used it less and less. I stopped logging his drinking intake as he only has milk on waking and at bedtime, and water all day. Gradually as he started having 3 ok sized meals a day, I stopped logging that. I stopped logging nappy changes and temperatures. I didn’t need the meds page anymore as he only has vitamin drops now.

And then one day, after only using it to update his weight and height, I decided to delete the app to get more storage on my phone for photos. Such a simple act. But such a massive step in my recovery from major anxiety.

The only thing I still kind of log is how often he poos as he sometimes needs a dose of movicol if it has been a couple of days. I do make a note of when he pukes but there’s general only one or two vomits a month.

I do still find myself getting a bit upset if he refuses to eat his dinner, but only because I have ARFID (Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder) and I worry that he may get it too. Although people have reassured me that being stubborn is just his age.

So yes. I have deleted the app that ruled our lives when he was a baby. Now he’s a toddler, I’m rolling with it. Winging it. And it feels good.