How often should you change a newborn's diaper? How to keep a simple diaper log

NHS Start for Life advises changing a newborn's nappy after each wee or poo, and putting on a fresh one at bedtime because it will be worn for longer. That is the rule: you change when the diaper needs it, not when a clock says so.

Family Doctor, the patient site of the American Academy of Family Physicians, says a newborn may need 8 to 12 changes a day at first, which works out at roughly every 2 to 3 hours. Parents often see the number go down as the baby gets older and passes urine less often.

Treat the number as a rough expectation, not a target. A baby who needs 7 changes one day and 11 the next is not doing anything wrong. The rule is the one to follow: change when it is wet or dirty.

Sources agree on the two cases that matter. Change a diaper right away if it is dirty, because stool left against the skin is what most often leads to nappy rash. For a diaper that is only wet, many parents let a sleeping baby sleep, and use the next feed as the time to change. Ask your midwife or health visitor what they advise for your baby, especially in the first weeks when your baby may also need waking to feed.

Changing is not the hard part. Remembering is. With two parents, a grandparent or a night shift, nobody knows whether the diaper was changed 20 minutes ago or three hours ago. A log answers that in a glance, and it also holds the information your care team asks for: how many wet and dirty diapers in the last day, and how the stool looked.

Our guides on how many wet diapers a newborn should have and on newborn poop colour explain what to count and what to note. This guide is about the plain habit of writing each change down.

Keep it to one line per change:

• The time.
• Wet, dirty or both.
• For a dirty one, the colour in words and anything unusual.
• Whether the skin looked red or sore, if you noticed.
• Who changed it, if more than one person looks after the baby.

If your baby gets a red or sore bottom, ask your pharmacist, health visitor or pediatrician what to use. Baton only records what you enter and gives no advice on creams or treatment.

Tap Diaper on the Today screen, choose wet, dirty or both, and save. The time defaults to now and you can edit it if you are logging a change after the fact. For a dirty diaper you can pick a colour swatch, and there is a note field. Baton records the colour and never interprets it.

The medium Home Screen widget shows your baby's most recent diaper and has a button for a wet diaper, so you can check when the last change was without opening the app. Siri or the Control Center control on iOS 18 can also log one. Every entry shows who logged it, and both parents see the same log through their own iCloud.

Charts counts wet and dirty diapers per day, with the 7-day view free and longer trends in Baton Plus. History lists each change with its time, and CSV export is free.

Baton does not remind you to change a diaper and does not say how often you should. It shows what you logged.

Look at the daily count over several days rather than a single day, and compare it with what your midwife or health visitor told you to expect. A week of bars shows quickly if a day was unusual.

Ask your midwife, health visitor or pediatrician if the number of wet diapers drops compared with the days before or is lower than they told you to expect, if the stool looks pale, red or black, if the rash does not clear, or if you are worried. Bring the log. In an emergency, call your local emergency number.