12 doesn't seem that strange to me. That's every 2 hours on average. 8 a day is every 3 hours like clockwork to keep a fresh/dry diaper on. Add in the unexpected poops that don't land on 3-hour boundaries and it's not hard to do 12. It seems like the upper end of normal but not an outlier.
It's pretty common for newborns to be on a highly regular 3 hours schedule for diaper changes. Happened with all three of our kids. Like clockwork, basically.
I’m going to disagree that this is common. Newborn schedules in general are not super predictable. I don’t know anyone who has described their newborn’s schedule as “clockwork”.
