Nursing triplet toddlers

I have been thinking about writing this post for months because I don't think I've written anything about nursing since the summer.  We are still nursing the babies, but probably 3 months ago or so we cut down to 2-3 times a day.  We still nurse them when they wake up in the morning and before bed and if one or both of us are home then we typically nurse them in the middle of the day before their afternoon nap.  Then of course there are the times when someone wakes up from a nap incredibly sad or has a serious wipeout and needs some extra help settling down.  I don't think we set out to nurse them this long (I know Michelle's original plan was 6 months!), but it's just part of our routine right now and I for one am not really ready to be done.  Michelle is definitely more ready to be done, but the babies are to blame for that because they are definitely NOT ready to be done and in fact are currently kind of obsessed with nursing and Michelle has had it with having little hands diving down her shirt requesting milk the second she walks in the door!

It is hilarous to think about how different nursing these three is now compared to a year ago.  I know this evolution happens for every mom who nurses into toddlerhood, but there are definitely some things that are different with multiples and some that are unique to having two moms both nursing triplets.

I don't know, but I suspect that other moms nursing toddlers are familiar with what we like to call "nursing yoga" where their little ones practically do sun salutations or work on their cirque du soleil routines all with your nipple in their mouth.  Their favorite yoga pose is standing on one leg with the other kicked up behind, similar to this standing bow pose!

Avery has tried to up the ante a bit by trying to do a plank while nursing by putting both feet up on the crib behind her!  Another favorite nursing game over the past few months include the ever popular "nipple peekaboo" where they either take our hand or put their hand on the nipple to play peekaboo a few times before re-latching.  Isaiah prefers the more traditional version of covering his one eye and playing peekaboo because then he can keep nursing! (smart boy!)  We are also super into body parts and what better time for a review session than while nursing, right?  Some current favorites include eyebrow, cheeks, chin, lips, teeth, and of course nipple and breast! Intermittently stopping nursing to blow a few quick raspberries on Mama's belly or breast is another funny one.

They sometimes like to give their loveys a nip of milk too. =)

Only moms of multiples though can truly appreciate the challenge of trying to referee a tandem nursing session.  What does that even mean you ask?  Well, remember, these guys are toddlers now and they don't stop being toddlers while they're nursing so the urge to test limits and annoy their siblings remains strong!  It is fairly routine to have to employ mama handcuffs to prevent hair pulling, eye poking, and other "annoy my nursing buddy" tactics.  Now, to offset those particularly obnoxious moments there are also occasional moments of incredible sibling sweetness where one will reach over and give their nursing buddy a back or head rub or try to hold hands.

hard to say whether Avery is getting a back rub and a head rub
at the same time here or if Isaiah is about to pull her hair!

The one thing that I suspect is unique to our situation and is also quite hilarious to watch is the game of musical nipples.  Avery started this game a few months ago and it took us a little while to catch on to her plan.  She would stop nursing and start saying "shhhhhh" and after a bit we figured out that she was trying to say "switch" because she wanted to switch spots with someone!  Now they all do it and pretty much every night now someone initiates a switch and often there are multiple switches.  I think this concept is pretty hilarious and most of the time the others are pretty amenable to the swap though sometimes we have to negotiate a trade. Lately they've also started saying switch when they want to switch sides.

If I'm the only one home before a nap and decide to nurse them we have a lot of these negotiations and do a lot of slowly counting to ten before switching so the third baby can get a little milk too.  I am actually amazed at how cooperative they typically are about taking turns most of the time.  Though there are times like the photo below where the third just tries to nudge someone out of the way using his or her head!


just in case you were wondering, no, I do not have 3 nipples

maybe I can get milk from Isaiah's head?
(or maybe if I bite his head he'll get outta my way?!)

And then when it was time to switch Isaiah tried to get milk from her cheek =)

I don't know how much longer we will end up nursing, but but it has been quite an adventure thus far and one I'm so thankful to been able to be a part of!  Love these crazy little toddlers!

9 months & going strong

I was thinking the other day that it's been a while since I wrote anything about breastfeeding our little trio and then something came up that gave me a good reason to write one. =)  Before we get to that though I just want to reiterate how incredibly thankful I am that I was able to induce lactation so I can participate in this breastfeeding experience.  I know some people hate it, in fact I know Michelle wasn't a big fan at various times, but I love it.  And I think being able to breastfeed our babies fully satisfied any urge I might have had to be pregnant. (Good thing since I no longer have a uterus!)  I"m also thankful that I'm able to continue breastfeeding post hysterectomy!  Anyway, it's funny how this whole breastfeeding experience changes so much as the babies get older.  It used to take minutes at a time and a lot of work to help them latch, now they launch themselves at us and are pretty hilarious.  Isaiah thinks it is really funny to pull off the nipple while simultaneously pushing on Michelle's breast just to see what happens.  He's a little rascal that one and thinks it is really funny!  Ellie's silly thing is that she will start talking while she's nursing and then you know she's about to pull off and grab you. And Avery is just a little monkey who can't sit still and would rather be in any position besides a cradle hold, preferably standing up!  But overall it's been going well and I think we're all in a good place with nursing.  We don't have any specific weaning plan and will probably let them just lead that process.  They currently nurse five times a day plus any night feedings, but it seems like the mid day ones are all more like snacks now that they are eating so much food, so I feel like if we aren't here for those they could probably skip one or two of those and just have a food snack.

We've come a long way from this:
  
to this:

Now Michelle is trying to figure out how slowly let her supply adjust to the amount the babies are needing because as it stands right now we pump before we go to bed, but if the babies don't wake up to eat (or at least A baby) then Michelle has to wake up to pump just to be comfortable and that is just plain annoying.  On the positive side though, with these pumping sessions we've been continuing to build up our stash of freezer milk. But really, we don't need all that milk we already have in the freezer and the babies aren't big fans of the thawed milk, often refusing to drink more than an ounce unless it's mixed with fresh milk.  We've used some of the frozen milk to make banana avocado popsicles for the babies and used more in their oatmeal and other foods, but even with that we have way more milk than I think we will use before it "expires." Milk is supposed to be good in the deep freezer for up to a year and I estimated that we had over 350 ounces of milk dated October and November.  

"Our stash" 

We have so much from that time because the babies were so little and just not eating as much milk as we produced and we were pumping ALL THE TIME to make sure our supply was going to be enough for when they started nursing better.  We hated the idea of it going to waste so Michelle did a little research into milk banks that accept donated milk, but we don't qualify because we have always just mixed all of our milk together.  So I was super excited when I happened to see a coworkers post on facebook about donating milk thorugh a group called Human Milk 4 Human Babies which is a way for people who are looking for donor milk to connect directly with people who have milk to donate.  I posted our Oct/Nov milk this week and today a woman drove two hours to come pick it up.  She is trying to breastfeed her 3 month old baby, but has some health issues and isn't able to produce nearly enough milk for her little guy.  We are so happy that she is able to use that milk!  And I'm happy to reclaim some freezer space!!!  We have an entire shelf open now, though we will start filling it back up with milk soon enough I'm sure. We may donate more milk later, but want to see how things go over the next few months before we decide on that. 

"Guest" post: The points system: When you can't do it all. Learning to breastfeed triplets, part 1

For "Throwback Thursday" this week we have a special guest post by Michelle, reflecting back on the most helpful advice she got from a lactation consultant while trying to "do it all" surviving the first week of breastfeeding triplets.  Here's Michelle!

I initially set out to write a product review and realized that I really wanted to talk about what I've learned about breastfeeding and then do the product review of Rumina's pump&nurse products. (stayed tuned for this in pt. 2)

I really knew very little about breastfeeding before the trio were born.  I had seen others do it of course and I knew from friends that it was not going to be super easy or awesome at first.  Mari had been pumping for months, so I'd seen her do that, but I really didn't know the mechanics of pumping either.  We had visited a lactation consultant (LC) before the babies were born and while she was enthusiastic and supportive, she didn't get into "how to's" at all.

When the babies were born (via c-section at 34 wks), I was told to pump within 2 hours, but was still in "recovery" and Mari was in the NICU with the babies, so I wasn't sure how to begin! Thankfully a LC visited to walk me through that first dairy cow-like experience of hooking my udders, er breasts, up to the pump.  I don't remember too many details from the first week of nursing because the combination of pain meds, sleep deprivation, and the stress of having three babies in the NICU leads to memory loss, literally! But I do remember that it felt very stressful and exhausting. I know I sought out help from the LCs at the hospital often and remember it feeling rather unhelpful with one exception: a very seasoned and practical LC who taught me a valuable lesson that I wanted to share with new nursing moms!

Because we had three babies to feed, we had to work hard to establish a good milk supply. While the babies were in the NICU we were told to pump every 2 hrs during the day and at least every 4 hours at night and to definitely get 8 times in 24 hours.  This is in addition to attempting to nurse the babies so they could learn to nurse and recovering from major surgery! (Not to mention visiting with a million doctors coming to check on me and/or the babies).  While I don't remember details, I clearly remember feeling completely overwhelmed with trying to fit so many things into a 24 hr period! Oh, and of course, I was also being told to rest (sleep is important for milk supply) and eat (a healthy diet, also important for milk supply).  I literally could NOT follow all the advice! 

I was feeling stressed about getting enough nursing and pumping in during each 24 hr period and am so thankful for the advice of the seasoned LC who taught me a system that helped me find some balance.  She told me to think of "things good for milk supply" as a whole and to give myself points for everything that met the definition. If I took a nap, I got points! If I tried nursing babies, more points! Kangaroo care? Points! Pumping? Points. She made me feel like I didn't have to, and really couldn't, do it all and that was okay.   If I couldn't nurse them, then pump. If I couldn't pump, eat a good lunch and cuddle with a baby.  It all counted!

This was such a relief to me.  I still tried to pump and nurse as often as possible, but I stopped being rigid about doing it all so many times per day!  Letting go of that let me focus more on enjoying our three precious babies.

cuddle time with Avery? Points...

Kangaroo care with Ellie? Points...

taking a nap? Points...
(no I didn't REALLY nap with all 3 in bed covered in a sheet, but it did make a cute pic!)

Part 2...what happens when three babies and two nursing moms leave the hospital? Coming soon...

A day in the life...with 3-4 month old triplets

I've been meaning to write an updated version of our "day in the life" post for weeks now and just haven't managed to get started. By the time you finish reading this post I think you'll understand why. Here's an average day these days: (we've essentially been on the same schedule since two and a half or three months)

7ish- Wake up & eat (most days Isaiah is our alarm clock). We each nurse one baby in our room while, hopefully, baby #3 is still sleeping. Feedings are generally taking about 20-25 min most times. We keep hearing this shoud be getting faster & it is, but not as quickly as we'd like. They are sometimes finishing in 15 minutes though.  Hopefully that is a trend!

7:30- Michelle feeds #3 & I change stinky overnight diapers, most often poopy. All babies get Zantac for reflux.

7:45-Playtime-Usually in the activity gym in our bedroom (Some days this is about when I leave for a work visit, leaving Michelle to get everyone down). Baby 3 gets changed.

8:30ish- Babies 1 & 2 start getting sleepy and get put down for a nap.   Nap time routine is a song or two and then down in their cribs. (Some days they're back down as early as 8/8:15 if they seem really sleepy). If we're both home one of us might get a shower while there's only one baby awake or go make breakfast.

9ish-Baby #3 goes down & moms eat breakfast if we haven't already squeezed it in cuz we were starving.  Usually enough time to get dressed, brush teeth, etc too.

9:30-Babies 1 & 2 wake up and eat...feeding party has moved to the living room now.

10-Two diapers & playtime in activity gym, bumbo, tummy time, etc.  Baby 3 up to eat (This is another time I might head out for work visit & be back by 12 or after baby 3 eats I send Michelle to the bedroom to do homework while I handle the babies.)

10:30-Diaper time for baby #3 who then joins playtime in the living room.

11ish-Babies 1 & 2 go down There's always about a 15 min leeway on either side for naps that vary between 45 min to a little over an hour. So if they seem like they're getting sleepy earlier, down they go.  If one baby wakes up early, lately they've been content to have some quiet time in the swing until baby 2 wakes up to eat..usually no more than ~15 min.

11:15/30- Baby 3 down for nap & moms get laundry moving, eat lunch, or maybe Michelle tries to do a quick homework task or make a meal plan. (Note the OR in the above statement! There's typically time for one task...especially when one of the first two down wakes up early or baby #3 has a hard time going down.)

12- Babies up to eat (As before baby 3 is 15-30 behind 1 & 2)

Repeat feeding-diaper-playtime-nap cycles with feedings around 2:30 & 5. Difference being that as the day progresses naps get harder and less consistent, often needing more intervention to get them to sleep, which means we get less done.

7:30-Start bedtime routine. For this cycle we do diaper changes first, getting them in their overnight diapers. Then we swaddle them, nurse them, read a couple books, sing our goodnight version of Frere Jaques and lay them in their crib, drowsy but awake. Typically, they all go down pretty easily with minimal fighting. If they do fight it, we set a 5min timer before going in to soothe. That's usually all it takes before they are off to dreamland.  This is the longest stretch of sleep, typically from about 8:30/9 to between 1 & 2. Some nights we have an early wake up but they usually soothe themselves back to sleep. On really lucky nights they might sleep until 2:30.

9-9:30-We get ourselves ready for bed, prep nighttime snacks, and pump right before bed. We are typically in bed by 9:15/9:30.

1 or 2a.m.-First night feeding. These night feedings are all business. Everyone stays swaddled, eats in the dark in our bedroom, and right back down. Usually no problems going back down though a few times lately Avery has gotten upset when we lay her back down. We do a quick pump after this feeding too because even though it means less sleep, it's a lot easier to pump at night than it is during the day now. The babies are just too busy for us to pump during the day now. Hopefully our milk supplies will keep up. So far so good. Our snack for this feeding is almost always an apple cut into thin slices.

4/5a.m.- 2nd night feeding. Same as the first only we don't pump after this one since by the time they're all back in bed we usually only have an hour or two left to sleep. Some days, like when I have an 8am visit or Michelle is feeling particularly stressed about school we just stay up after this feeding. It's a hard choice to make, but we usually get a lot done when we do it. As you can see from the schedule above, the longest window we have to accomplish any task is about 30 minutes and if we stay up after this feeding we might have almost 90 minutes of continuous time to work, which feels like an eternity. But, when we do stay up, we've generally gotten about 6 hours of sleep so we can't do this all the time or we get worn down.

And then we start it all over again around 7a.m.!  We keep waiting for their cycles to stretch out a bit, but they're just not ready yet, I guess. They are pretty good at letting us know when they need to sleep and are very clear about when they need to eat!!

And that's our life these days! Whew, anyone else feel tired just reading this?!

Lots of sleepy babies

Road trippin' with triplets

We didn't arrive until 2:15 a.m. (3:15 our time), but we made it!  Overall, the trip wasn't that bad, which is not to say that we didn't have a few mishaps. We started off on bad foot when we got 20 min into the trip and I realized we'd forgotten the bottles in the fridge. So we got out of the house ovee an hour later than I'd hoped and then had an additional forty minute do-over.  

All the kiddos fell asleep pretty quickly and slept until shortly before the Pennsylvania/Ohio border, when one by one they started fussing which quickly turned into wailing. We were hoping to make it to the first Ohio rest stop to feed them but wouldn't you know that rest stop was closed! So we got off at the next town.  While evaluating our options (McDonald's, BK, & Arbys) Michelle noticed a Best Western and thought that might be a better spot for feeding babies.  The plan was just to walk in and start feeding, figuring someone would have to be pretty bold so come up to us and complain.  But when we walked in the front desk person was super friendly in greeting us, so Michelle just asked her if we could feed our three hungry babies here and she said "of course!"  That was a great call on Michelle's part because it was completely empty, had subdued lighting, and an easy access clean bathroom.  

I call this the double cross-over burp move!

Nursing Avery & bottle feeding Ellie

     

  Diaper change & car seat break station

The kiddos weren't too happy to get back in their car seats and had quite the little chorus while we were in the Arby's drive thru so we could grab a bite to eat. But I randomly started singing "wheels on the bus" and magically they all stopped crying!!  They all slept nicely again for a while. The next time they started stirring I joined them in the back and continually put pacifiers in; it felt a little like trying to plug the holes in a leaky dike!  Our second stop was at an Indiana rest stop near Elkhart. This was not nearly as nice of a place to feed babies!  The only way to not sit near a kind of sketchy dude meant sitting near a leaky ceiling!  But we manages and I pulled double duty again, nursing Avery while feeding Ellie a bottle. I did all the diapers at our first stop so Michelle did the second--boy did I luck out!! She had three big poopy diapers at our second stop. 

Rest stop booth diaper change station

    

The precarious leaky ceiling of impending doom

 Packed up & ready for the home stretch

Because she'd only fed one baby and there was a pretty long interval between, Michelle was getting particularly desperate to pump. So I drove after the second stop so she could pump. She got all set up and turned the pump on, or should I say tried to turn the pump on! Apparently the batteries had died!  And of course we'd already pulled out of the rest stop!  So we made two additional stops to find batteries to operate the pump! Just what we needed on an already long drive!  Did I mention it was raining for the second half of Ohio and super foggy all across Indiana?!?  Needless to say, we are glad we made it and ready for a little snooze now! Fingers crossed the babies are down with this whole napping thing!!!  

Triplet stats game

Michelle and I have been using an iPhone  app called Baby Connect to track the bodily functions of our tres amigos.  We are pretty good about tracking time spent nursing, ounces taken by bottle or supplement, and wet/poopy diapers. We do miss quite a few diapers and can often be heard saying "did you change Avery? Do you remember what it was?" We recently started tracking sleep with the app too, but we haven't been that consistent, and often forget.  The app lets is look at the data using graphs by the day, week, or month.  I thought it might be fun to do a little game with the data from the app so here are a few questions for you.

1) Who nursed for over 100 hours in the month of November?

A. Isaiah

B. Avery

C. Ellie

D. A&B

E. B&C

2) Approximately how many total diaper changes does the Triplet Threat need in a week?

A 75-100

B 100-125

C 150-175

D 200-225

3) Which two babies have slept for four hours at a time at least once?

A the girls

B Isaiah & Ellie

C Isaiah & Avery

D don't be ridiculous!? No one has slept that long

4) Which baby has the lowest percentage of poopy diapers?

A Isaiah 

B Avery 

C Ellis 

D no difference, they're all within one percent of the others

It was interesting for me to take the time to really look at the similarities and differences in each of the kiddos when writing these questions!  But instinctively we know because I asked Michelle all the questions and she got them all right.  We will leave the answers for you in a comment tomorrow. :)

"Uh, Avery, do you know any of the answers?! Ellie must be the poopiest right?!"

It's been a "three fussy babies" kinda day...

So I got the idea for this post last week sometime, but it's never been more fitting than now.  As I mentioned in another post, everyone got three shots Thursday. We had them on Tylenol for the first 24 hours and we were pleasantly surprised by their reactions which seemed minimal. Well, starting around 2am Saturday night that assessment went out the window!

Oy! Being a mom is hard.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think we had any illusions that we were going to have it easy.  And I  don’t think our expectations were too far off base, but still, being in the thick of it is hard.  I found this blog post, 10 True Things About the First Year of Parenthood last week and then someone posted it on my Facebook timeline and I think the author hit the nail on the proverbial head more than once.  In fact, I bookmarked the post on my phone so I can go back and re-read it periodically.  The blogger, Karyn Thurston, starts her list with 1. You are going to suck at this parenting gig and be awesome at it at the same time, all the time.    This is sure is true.  Rationally, I know we're doing an awesome job, especially considering that we have not one, but three tiny humans depending on us. I mean they're all being fed, changed, and loved on daily which is awesome enough!  But there's nothing quite like a fussy baby (or three) to destroy your confidence in your ability to be a good parent! That feeling when you know they've been fed, have a dry diaper, and aren't in obvious pain but are still crying and you can't for the life of you figure out why or how to make it stop is pretty defeating.  We're sure hoping we can attribute the past 24 hours worth of inconsolable fussiness to the vaccines and that this isn't a "new normal" for us because if it is, I'm not sure we'll all survive. Saturday night around 4am I camped out on the floor of the nursery so Michelle could get a little sleep because Avery was inconsolable and Isaiah was also having trouble giving in to the idea of sleep. So I had Isaiah in the Rock-n-play and tried putting  Avery in the vibrating bouncy seat, but Avery wasn't having it.  I ended up with Avery in my arms and a foot keeping Isaiah rocking slightly.  Eventually we all fell asleep for an hour or so until the next feeding time. 

The next point from the 10 True Things blog post that hit home was her fourth one: "4. We have got to stop telling people that things should be easy and painless. We live in a culture that equates ease with value -- the easier it is, the better it is; if it hurts you, something is wrong. Reality check: sometimes things that are hard and painful are also really, really good."  I'm not even going to pretend that there is anything about raising triplets that is easy and few things are painless, but it is still pretty great.  There was nothing painless or easy about crashing on the nursery floor Saturday night though honestly, I can't really say there was anything good about it either, except maybe Michelle getting an hour of sleep!  But there are painful moments when you can see the good through the pain, like knowing even through those painful tiny mouth latches we sometimes get from the girls that it's amazing that our bodies are providing all the nourishment they need right now.  And those fleeting moments of eye contact, the new baby smell of their heads as we snuggle, and the sleepy smiles all go a long ways towards reminding us of the value in all the hard stuff we're slogging through.

And the last, and probably most important, point I think Karyn made in her 10 True Things blog, was number eight. "8. The most important thing to get for your baby is not a Rock n' Play, nor a good set of swaddling blankets, nor a high-end stroller. The most important thing to get for your baby is a village.  Your village will keep you afloat."  Our village is most definitely keeping us afloat.  I don't even want to think about where we'd be without our village.  Just today Fran dropped off another bag of Trader Joes goodies and some soup and then played outside with Humphrey.  And tonight Michelle's mom, Denise, is really saving us by volunteering to take on "monitor duty," going in to soothe babies between feedings so we can maximize our sleep and hopefully recover from the previous night and day.  The gazillion loads of laundry Hope and others have done are key to keeping things running around here; I bet Hope can't even count the number of diapers she has folded in the last six weeks!  Sure, there are some naps when I think the Rock-n-Play and the swaddling blankets are clutch, but really they don't compare to the village.  So to all of you in our village, both those who have helped so far and those who will help over the coming months and those near and far, thank you...thank you for keeping afloat!  And please, keep the help coming.  We can't do this alone!!!

Here's hoping that this new level of fussiness is temporary and that the number of "three fussy babies at the same time" days are few and far between. So far tonight is going much better than last night which bodes well for tomorrow. (well, technically that's today. It's confusing when you're writing in the middle of the night!)  This picture seemed appropriate for this post!

You want something to cry about?!

Yesterday was the babies 6 week check up and weight check.  It was also their first round of shots. :(   Wednesday night was a rough one so everyone (moms included) was a little cranky yesterday. On top of the baseline crankiness we got to add poor timing because the appointment was scheduled at a feeding time.  So just the usual strip down for weight and doctor check was met with a lot more crying and fussing than usual. At one point, while we waited for the doctor, we had to do a baby shuffle because I had both girls and Avery was super fussy and couldn't keep her pacifier in. So, using the examining table as a loading zone (it's not easy to transfer babies when you're holding two!) we traded so Michelle could keep Avery's pacifier in with her free hand. Knowing they we're going to get shots, at one point Michelle told Avery "just wait, pretty soon you're really gonna have something to cry about!"  I repeated that "something to cry about" phrase a couple times to various crying babies during that appointment!

Their check up went very well and Dr. Brink is very pleased with how they are doing.  All continue to gain weight which is great. After the last visit, when Ellie's weight gain had fallen off the curve a bit, we were worried about her so we paid her some extra attention at feedings, making sure she got a lot of hind milk (the fattier cream-like milk) and went back to giving her supplements if she had a bad feed.  All that extra focus paid off because Ellie was the biggest gainer, going from 5 lbs. 6 oz. all the way to 6 lbs. 10 oz!!  Avery has regained the littlest peanut status of the family, weighing 6 lbs. 4 oz. and Isaiah, of course, is still the biggest at 7 lbs. 3 oz. It makes sense now that Isaiah's starting to outgrow some of the newborn clothes.

After their check up with the doctor, it was time for the nurse to come back and give the dreaded shots. They each got three shots yesterday; Synagis, which is an RSV vaccine that they qualify for because they're preemies, a T-Dap, and a pneumonia and meningitis vaccine.   The whole shots experience was pretty rough on all five of us! We have never seen these babies cry the way they cried when they got the shots. Even with all the procedures in the NICU, they never cried like that. But that may have been just because they were so little and just didn't have that big of a cry then.  I don't know.  They all turned beet red and let out quite the wail complete with real tears.  I was able to 'boobify' (ie pacify with the breast) each of them right after which settled them right down, but still it's no fun to see your babies cry like that.

Oh, one other exciting thing happened at the doctor visit yesterday besides the great weight gain!  While Dr. Brink was checking out Avery I had Isaiah and Ellie on the examining table and they were both getting a little fussy, so I rolled them over on their tummies just to mix it up a little bit. Well Isaiah pushed right up on his elbows apparently trying to show off and then tried to roll over. On his first attempt to got to his side and then rolled back over to his tummy, but the second time  he got it! So Isaiah's first time rolling belly to back happened at the doctors office. Talk about proud mommies! 

Here are a couple of recent cute pics:

posers

 two thirds pics

(oooh boy does she hate it when her thumb jumps out of her mouth!)

Auntie Kate meets the Triple Threat

My sister Kate came from Minneapolis for a quick visit this weekend to meet the babies!  She was he less than 48 hours, but it was still a great visit!  A big thanks to Kate's husband Claude for doing single dad duty this weekend so Kate could come!  Kate brought a suticase full of baby stuff with her too, including a bunch of larger sized cloth diapers her friend generously offered us, some cute long sleeve onesies, and these amazing sea creature toys that she made herself!  I'm amazed by her craftiness and if she didn't have a very busy toddler at home, I'd say she should sell them on Etsy!  They even have crinkle paper in them! Now we just need to keep them safe from Humphrey!

Sisters (looking more alike than usual I think!)

getting some one on one with Isaiah

Having conquered a number of breastfeeding challenges with her daughter Abigail, Kate was able to provide Michelle with some great breastfeeding support.  Not that she didn't help me too, but Michelle has been having more trouble with pain issues and finding comfortable nursing positions.  (There are some advantages to having smaller breasts like I do, in that there's less to "manage!")  And a super plus is that Kate is still breastfeeding Abigail so she was willing and able to jump right in and help feed babies!  Adding a third "breastaurant" for the weekend gave Michelle some much needed relief from double feedings and sped up the whole feeding process a lot!  The kiddos, having experience switching back and forth between their moms, had no issues with adding a third set of breasts into the rotation.  Michelle and I both agreed that we need more lactating visitors!!  Sure it's nice to have two moms breastfeeding, but seriously, being able to play "man to man defense" (or in this case, woman to baby!) was really helpful, especially when all three babies wake up and wanted to eat at the same time!  Any other lactating mommies want to come visit?!? =)

All three babies eating at the same time!  

Three generations of Therrien women (+ Isaiah!)

Auntie Kate with all three babies!!!

Ellie sporting one of the new onesies from Kate

                                                

Four weeks old!!!

Wow! It is really hard to believe our little bambinos are four weeks old today!  How time flies when you're not getting any sleep!  Seriously though, it really does seem crazy that we've already been home for three weeks.  We had another pediatrician visit yesterday and I am happy to report that the babies are all growing and have all surpassed their birthweight!  As usual Isaiah is leading the charge weighing in at 6lbs 5.9oz!  The way they measure length is an inexact science at best, but they marked him at 19.25 inches yesterday.  And as you can tell from all the pictures, he has a big noggin, measuring 35.5cm around.  Avery wins the award for the biggest gainer weighing in at a whopping 12oz over birthweight (5lbs 8oz) passing up Miss Ellie who weighed in at 5lbs 7oz.  The girls both measured 19 inches long and with a head size of 33.5cm.  Dr. Brink seemed please with their progress and said they all looked great.  We will continue to focus on getting more calories into Ellie and try to get her as much hind milk as possible, but we do not have to do any more supplements, which is great.  We've been gradually eliminating the supplements over the past week and everyone seems to be doing fine.  That makes our feeding process just a little less labor intensive, and therefore less time intensive too.  We are happy with their progress, but to put their size in perspective, even Isaiah is below the 5th percentile and the girls are more like the 1st percentile for their age, so we have a lot of growing to do!  Multiple visitors have commented that they look much smaller in person than they do in the pictures!

I have a bunch of little ideas for blog posts germinating in my brain, but haven't been able to flesh any of them out into something coherent.  It could be the sleep deprivation catching up with me!  Last night was actually one of our best nights recently with Michelle and I getting two straight hours of sleep a couple of times I think.  It is funny though how getting that much sleep in some ways makes the night seem harder. I think it is because we actually get into a deep sleep cycle and then have a hard time coming back up to the surface of wakefulness, whereas in nights where we don't get more than half an hour of uninterrupted sleep we never really sleep so we aren't as out of it (though we do tend to be crabbier I think!). 

Overall I think all of our little munchkins are doing really well.  I mean, really, think how advanced they are.  They shouldn't  even be born yet and here they are having to breathe, eat, poop, pee, and move against gravity!  That is a lot to manage!  It's funny actually, because each week on Tuesday or Wednesday, Michelle and I each get an email from babycenter.com telling us what that week of pregnancy is like and how the baby is developing in utero.  Seriously though, it seems like they are more alert each week and are getting more endurance for eating, which will hopefully help them keep growing big and strong.  We can tell they've gotten bigger because most of the preemie clothes are too small now, though most of the newborn things still seem a little big.

Good news...we got the final pics from the photographer! If you want to see them all you can go to this website  http://www.enjoyphotos.com, and fill in the following information: 

Username: Therrien Triplets

Password: 7401

We are very happy with how they turned out!  The hard part now is figuring out which ones to buy and print!

Here are a few pics from the past few days

                   Isaiah making silly faces

       Avery bright eyed and NOT ready for sleeping

               Ellie rockin' the froggy hat!

Hangin' on the bed in various stages of the eating/changing process

Mommy desperately trying to settle/hold off three babies at once until we were ready for the next feeding

For those who were curious about induced lactation...

After my post about the pediatrician visit, I had more than five people email or message me about how the heck this whole "breast feeding without being pregnant" thing works exactly.  So I thought I'd write a really quick post about it with a link to more info for anyone who wants more information.  There's a long history of native cultures inducing lactation, including some grandmothers.  It's interesting that you can induce lactation even after menopause. Here's a link to the protocol I followed to make this happen for anyone who wants more info: Newman-Goldfarb protocol.  It isn't exactly a barrel of fun to have to pump every few hours, as any working mother who is breastfeeding will tell you, but it's worth it for these kiddos to be able to hopefully avoid formula.  Although I've been building up a stock of milk in the freezer for our babies, I still wasn't sure if I would be able to produce enough milk to make a meaningful contribution, but then Michelle sent me this picture she found on pinterest and I felt a whole lot better about pumping 8-10oz in a day! I know that there will be challenges with breast feeding, but I'm excited to be able to get to have this experience with our babies when they are ready, which I know might not be right away if they are preemies!

cool visual

The pre-baby milk stash so far...