When two scientists have a baby...

We were instructed by our midwives to monitor fetal movements: how long it takes for baby to move 10 times. They gave us a tally sheet, but we thought a spreadsheet would be more efficient, and it enables the making of charts:



Our midwife thought this was hilarious, and said that most people just note things like "baby had two active periods today." As scientists, we like to make graphs.

The purpose of the monitoring is to get a sense of the baby's activity level, since a marked decrease from what's normal for our baby could indicate that something is wrong. They told us it could take up to 2 hours for the 10 movements, but so far it's always under 10 minutes at active times (usually after dinner). The record is 3 minutes - we clearly have a very active baby.