Dad Turns Newborn Daughter's Sleeping Patterns Into Stunning Graphic

Andrew Elliot mapped his daughter's sleeping patterns for the first six months of her life. The circle is oriented like a 24-hour clock with midnight at the top. Each concentric circle represents a day, starting from day 1 in the center. Sleep, or inactivity, is blue and waking hours are tan. (Credit: Andrew Elliot) Life for a rookie parent can be utterly terrifying. For the first time they’re 100 percent responsible for another human being’s survival. One freshly minted dad, fully comprehending the gravity of the situation, left no stone unturned when it came to caring for his newborn daughter. In addition to feedings and diaper changes, Andrew Elliot, an industrial designer by day, recorded his daughter’s sleeping patterns to make sure all systems were normal. And after manually collecting six months of daily sleep data using the Baby Connect app, Elliot relied on his technical know-how to extract the numbers and compose a stunning visualization of his daughter’s sleeping habits in the opening days of her life. His graphic was a big hit on Reddit, but it’s also an excellent representation of what researchers know about sleep cycles early in life. "I was recording her sleeping times because as a first-time parent I thought I would do whatever it took to keep her alive (so far so good)," Elliot wrote (she's now two years old). "When you're a new, sleep-deprived parent, it's hard to notice changes in patterns like this, but the visualizations make it very clear."