How to keep a baby stool log

1. What this is

A baby stool log is a short note by a carer of when a nappy was changed and what consistency and colour it held. Paediatric appointments often ask how the last few days went, and remembering each nappy is hard. This app stands in for that memory.

The ruler for consistency is the modified Bristol stool scale for children. The adult original has seven steps; the children's version drops two of them and keeps five. It was validated with parents, grandparents and day-care workers scoring children aged one to three, so it is a ruler that does not need an expert.

So this app records and counts, and stops there. It never says a probability, never says something is dangerous, and never sends a notification. If your child worries you, taking the log to a paediatrician is the right move, and this app is where what you will show them gets prepared.

The carer writes, and the child owns the record. That is why no name and no birth date are asked for, and nothing is kept on a server. Adults logging their own use a different scale, in the adult stool diary.

2. Reading the five steps

Step 1 is separate hard lumps like little beans, and step 2 is a lumpy sausage. Step 3 is a smooth soft sausage or snake, step 4 is mushy pieces with ragged edges, and step 5 is watery with almost no solid pieces.

In original Bristol numbering those are types 1, 2, 4, 6 and 7. Original type 3, a sausage with cracks on its surface, and type 5, soft blobs with clear-cut edges, were dropped from the children's version. If you have seen a seven-step chart in a book or at a clinic, just remember that its numbers and this app's steps differ.

As a rough rule the higher the number the softer it was. Do not read the number itself as a score, though. The American Academy of Pediatrics says mustardy yellow is usual for breastfed babies, yellow-tan with hints of green for formula, that every shade of yellow, brown and green is acceptable, and that the palette widens once solids begin. A single value is not a score, and that is also why this app never builds a figure like average consistency.

When parents, grandparents and day-care workers scored photographs of stools in nappies on this scale, they agreed well with one another. In other words this ruler was made for carers to look and choose, not for experts only.

3. The rules inside this app

The log screen is two steps. Tap one of the five consistency steps, then tap one of the six colours. Once both are chosen the keep button comes alive. There is deliberately no free text box and no field for the child's name, because a field you cannot write in is a field that cannot leak.

The photo is optional. If you choose one it is shrunk to a small grid inside the browser, the bright and nearly colourless parts are treated as the nappy and taken out, the average colour of what remains gives a colour candidate, and the number of lumps together with how ragged the largest edge is gives consistency candidates. Candidates come as a range of up to two when one cannot be told from another, because the rules genuinely cannot separate hard lumps from mushy pieces in a single photo and hiding that would be dishonest.

A suggestion stays a suggestion and never crosses into the log by itself. Choosing is always a tap by the carer. The photo is dropped after reading, neither the original nor the shrunk copy is stored, and nothing is uploaded anywhere.

Colour guidance is attached to three colours only: white or pale grey, red, and black. Every other colour gets no message at all. Moving between yellow, green and brown follows what the child eats, and hanging a worry on each colour would turn a log into something that frightens parents. Black carries one exception, written into the notice itself: a newborn's first few black, sticky meconium stools are normal.

Keeping a log requires a parent or guardian to turn on a separate consent. With it off nothing is stored, and turning it off deletes what was kept. The delete now button is always present either way. Do not turn it on for a shared computer.

4. Getting the basics right

There is no need to catch every nappy. If an appointment is coming up, three to seven days in a row is already enough to talk about. Several entries a day are fine; one line is one nappy.

When the consistency is ambiguous, pick the nearer one and move on. An unbroken run of entries shows the trend better than entries agonised over.

The trend screen only draws counts per day and per step as bars. No interpretation is attached, so if something stands out, show that screen as it is at the paediatrician's.

5. Using it a little better

For photo help, a well lit shot of the opened nappy taken straight from above reads best. Heavy shadow or a blurry image leaves the rules unable to separate stool from nappy, and in that case they say there was nothing to read and step back.

Days that could change things, such as the first day of solids, a formula switch, or a new food, are worth remembering so you can mention them at the appointment. This app never says what caused a change, but the log does say when things changed.

With more than one child, separate browser profiles or devices are the safest way. This app deliberately has no field to tell children apart, and there is no way to move a log to another device. Without a server there is nowhere to move it, and in exchange there is nowhere for it to escape to either.

6. Where people get stuck

If the keep button will not press, one of the step or the colour has not been chosen yet. It comes alive once both are.

If you kept an entry and it is gone next time, the consent was most likely off. While it is off entries only show on screen and are not stored.

If a photo produces no suggestion, the rules could not separate nappy from stool. Choose by eye instead. A missing suggestion never blocks you from keeping an entry.