A day in the life

When people hear that we have triplets, often one of the first comments is "I don't know how you do it!"  So I wanted to write this post to give you a better idea of what our typical day looks like right now and just 'how we do it!'  As I've mentioned before we read a lot of triplet blogs during the pregnancy and honestly, not very many people keep up the detailed posts after the babies are born. It is mostly just pictures, which I completely understand! (And obviously, I know that's why most of you keep looking at the blog!). But as we prepared for our trio's arrival, I found myself searching for the details and wanting to ask each family "No, really, how do you do it?!"  So this post will give our family and friends some idea what our days are like, but most importantly, for any families who are expecting, or just had triplets, this post is for you!

In thinking about writing this post I had a hard time figuring out where to start "the day!"  Our days don't exactly start at 6, 7, or 8a.m. but it seemed weird to start at midnight too!  So I decided to start with a normal person's morning and go from there.

•5am-Both M&M feed babies 
•5:30-One of us feeds baby #3 while the other starts changing diapers. (If we have a helper for this one, Michelle usually sends me to bed so I get an extra bit of sleep because the late night/early mornings are the hardest times for me.)
•6:00-Swaddle and soothe babies and put them down to sleep
•6:15-M&M pump to maintain milk supply and get milk for next feeding's supplements
•6:30-Wash pump parts and supplement contraption, prep supplements for the next feeding, & take any extra milk to the fridge
•6:45/7ish-M&M eat a snack & lay back down to catch an hour or so of sleep before starting all over
•8ish-Babies start stirring again and we start the feed, change, swaddle, pump, clean/prep cycle all over again (We often have a helper for this cycle so it tends to go a little faster...sometimes done in an hour!) 
•9/9:30ish-M&M eat a quick breakfast and either lay down for another snooze or take a shower or do one small productive task like put in a load of diaper laundry, tidy up the zoo of a bedroom, or do dishes
•11ish-Babies start stirring and repeat. This cycle is either followed by a nap or lunch or breakfast if we prioritized sleep the previous cycle!
•2ish-Samesies-almost always followed by a nap-particularly for Michelle whose hardest time is the afternoon.
•5ish-Surprise surprise...we do it all over again!  Mari might start this one solo to give Michelle an extra half hour of sleep or might do it all alone with a helper handling the diapers and prep
•6:30ish-M&M eat dinner--generally something a helper prepared for us or that we heat up from the freezer.  Prep night time nursing snacks and bring them to the bedroom.
•7ish-M&M lay down for a short snooze before the 8pm cycle. Or, if we're not feeling sleepy we might actually hang out with each other, check in, & talk over our plans, if any, for the next day.
•8pm-Hungry hungry hippos are ready to eat again (did I say hippos?!  I meant babies, of course!) and the feed/change/swaddle/pump/clean cycle repeats. We try to do this one quickly and with as little light as possible, trying to help them get the idea of night time = sleep time.  So far it doesn't seem to be helping and they are just as likely to be wide eyed after this feeding as any other.  Hope often watches the babies during this time, soothing them if they stir, so we can both get a nice solid uninterrupted hour or two of sleep going into the night.  
•11pm-Repeat. Same as 8pm with low light and as quickly as we can manage.
•2am-Here we go again...This is the hardest one for me and Michelle has had to wake me up for this feeding some nights! Half the time I feel like I'm sleep walking and struggling to stay awake while nursing. Sometimes I have to stand up and move around the room to keep myself alert and functional.

Whenever we have help, one or both of us tries to go sleep in the guest room so that we aren't disturbed by the little stirrings/rumblings/cries of one or more babies as they cycle through lighter periods of sleep.  The above schedule is like a rough draft. We are not hard core about the clock and the babies really lead the way. Oftentimes our lovely 3hour cycle is shortened to 2.5 hours because of hungry tummies.  And occasionally, they'll stretch it to 3.5 hours! This has only happened a handful of times, and of course, only once at night. We will be so happy if/when we can get the 3.5 hour cycle happening at night on a regular basis. It's amazing how different that extra half hour of sleep can make you feel!

Now that we have a fairly good handle on the above routine, we now have to figure out how to manage all of this plus getting Michelle back to doing school work and me slowly going back to work. I'm starting with three visits this week, and all of them are local State College kiddos so I shouldn't have to miss a feeding just yet.  We'll see how this goes! The thought is a little overwhelming, but we know it has to happen eventually because my paid time off will be gone after this week, or partway through next week I think.  And we can't pay the bills without me working at least part time...

Hard to leave these cuties even for an hour though!