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

I need an off switch

Ugh! We're all up for the second night feeding time and I feel like a zombie. After the last feeding ended, a mere hour and a half ago, I laid in bed not sleeping for way too long. I just kep thinking and thinking. I was thinking about ideas for blog posts, about my upcoming day, and giving each passing thought some conscious time rather than letting them pass on by, which is what I should've been doing. I know that I eventually fell asleep because I woke up dreaming about running a 5k, but it wasn't enough sleep. This is why I need an off switch for my brain!

I'm thrilled that the babies are getting one longer chunk of sleep these days, but I wish it wasn't from 8:30-2ish. Because after that first long chunk we're lucky if subsequent sleeps are three hours. (Tonight it was 2 hours & 10 minutes.) Michelle and I just need to go to sleep earlier so we get to appreciate that long sleep more, but it's hard. Tonight we were in bed, lights out by 9:39/9:45, but that means we missed an hour of baby sleeping time. And while the little man, AKA our clock, slept just over two hours this last cycle, his moms only get to sneak in an hour and a half because when he's done eating, one of his sisters still needs to eat & we still pump after that feeding. :(

This week, as we continue trying to figure out how I can work more and Michelle can find enough time for schoolwork, we've experimented with getting up for the day after this feeding (sometime between 5 & 6 a.m.).  On the days when we manage this feat and don't crawl back under the covers, Michelle gets a nice quiet hour plus to do homework and I usually make breakfast, get coffee brewing & get myself ready for work.  But making that choice, especially on days (nights) like this, feels impossible sometimes...

Wednesday's breakfast-Brussels sprouts & pancetta hash with an over easy egg & grapefruit. Somehow this kind of fancy breakfast made the tough choice to get up seem much better.  But still doesn't make getting out of bed easy!

Sleep boot camp

I borrowed the name for this post from my friend Heather who told me her twins were currently on sleep boot camp after reading my post about the late night antics.  Our babies are in sleep boot camp too as of Friday night. We have been debating when to really start sleep training for a few weeks now.  Okay debating makes it sound like we both had a strong opinion and were trying to convince the other person, when actually it was more like us randomly tossing out pros and cons of different timing. Some books say you can start right away and others say to wait until six weeks post due date, which for us wouldn't be until Christmas Eve. (Talk about a horrible time to start sleep training!!). We've been using what Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Twins calls the "check & console" strategy up until this week.  In check & console you go to them pretty much right away each time they cry, trying to settle then with as little intervention as possible.  We've been doing this for weeks and about half the time it was feeling like we were just making things worse when we went in.  (Of course most of the sleep books we've read say this is best done by the father because he doesn't smell like breastmilk...so that might be part of our problem!)  Anyway, because we weren't feeling great about what we've been doing we decided it was time to up the ante and try "controlled crying." As always, they get rocked, shushed, and soothed until they are drowsy but awake, then if they start crying we set a five minute timer and wait those five minutes before going in to settle them back to sleepyland.  The next time we wait ten minutes before going in and the next 15 minutes.

For the most part, they've been doing great and have been going down smoothly for most naps and in the middle of the night, but late afternoon/evening time is rough. It's been getting a little better each night, but they never all go down in the evening without crying.  They've always had the hardest time in the evening so this is nothing new.  It's just a tough time of day and is definitely the most frustrating because they seem so out of it and then BAM, they're screaming.  And I think if it was just one baby, it really wouldn't seem like much at all, but with three babies it's a different story. We get them all settled down and walk out of the room feeling super accomplished and pleased that all three babies are quiet.  But then before you know it someone crying.  So we wait then go in, settle the crying baby and cross our fingers.  Sadly, we often walk out of the room and sit down only to have another one start up. They are usually settling on their own and we often get a couple minutes into their five minute timer and everyone is quiet and calm, but they aren't always staying that way for the rest of the nap time.  Fortunately it hasn't happened super often, but there have been a few times when all three are crying and it's a veritable symphony.  People ask us if they wake each other up and in general we say no, but when they are trying to fall asleep then it seems like one crying baby can get one or both of the other babies ramped up.  Isaiah and Avery sometimes seem like they are psychically connected the way they can ramp each other up!

We are starting to learn each of their cries and can usually tell who it is that is crying before we open the app on our phone to check the video feed.  Occasionally Ellie stumps us because when she gets mad she can sound like Avery.  Isaiah probably has the most distinctive cry and sounds like a broken record skipping when he cries when fighting sleep.  The nice thing about knowing their cries is that we feel pretty confident that we know when it's an "I'm fighting sleep" cry versus a "something is wrong" cry and can attend to them differently.

But no matter how you spin it, this is definitely a trying time in our house.  It is born out of necessity because we were going crazy going in to soothe every two seconds and sometimes felt like we could just move from one crib to the next to the next, but it's still not fun to hear them cry.  Like I said most times are fine, but evenings can really wear us down.  We have been having a lot of conversations about how we can take care of ourselves and each other right now.  Michelle in particular has been struggling with the evenings so I'm giving her the evening off tonight and sending her and Jess to go see Frozen, the new Disney movie.  Hope is helping me with the 5pm feeding then heading to rugby practice so I'll be on my own for about an hour.  I know it's going to be tough, but I'm mentally preparing myself and have done a lot of prep like getting bottles ready and treats for myself.   Wish me luck!!!

A few cute pics to make us all smile and remind me how cute they are.  Michelle and I have joked that we should get a projector and project adorable photos of them on our ceiling at night to remind us how much we love them when we're struggling in the middle of the night. =)

Let's hope we dont have any of this nonsense!!

And that we do see a lot of this

And even more of this!!!

Sleep is like gold...only maybe more valuable!

As I imagine any new parent can attest, sleep is a precious commodity and sleep or the lack of it can make or break a day.  And in the middle of the night a lack of sleep can break your spirit!  In the early days when they weren't eating or getting a diaper change, all the babies did was sleep. It was lovely. Now, even though we haven't yet made it to their due date, that is definitely not the case.  The babies have outgrown the newborn sleepiness phase and no longer drift into sleep peacefully like little angels.  I guess the peaceful easy sleeping still happens sometimes (and more often during the day than at night), but it is much more common to either fight sleep or go down easily only to wake up screaming within minutes.  They're all developing distinct personalities and habits around sleep.  Now if we can just figure out the strategies that work for each of them!


right about when she starts screaming

Avery is the biggest fighter.  When she starts showing sleepy signs we can swaddle her up and put her in the crib and she will usually lie there pretty contentedly for a while with her eyes wide open.  But as soon as her eyelids start to droop, she starts fighting, AKA wailing. And let me tell you, when this kiddo screams, you hear it anywhere in the house!! I think she has a serious case of FOMO (fear of missing out) and just can't let herself go.  Avery is still a little swaddle Houdini, sometimes working her hand out up through the sleeve and neck of her sleeper.  (see the picture of Isaiah below!)


Isaiah is hit or miss with how he goes down.  Sometimes he goes down super easy and is dead asleep within minutes.  Other times he can be falling asleep in your arms and then be instantly awake and screaming the second he hits the crib, only to again seem dead asleep if picked back up.  When he does go down easily, it's usually only a temporary gig because within minutes he is often grunting and lifting his legs up (we're guessing from gas??), which then escalates to crying.  He is also the first to wake up 99% of the time.  Isaiah fights the swaddle pretty much every time, but we know he needs it because if he gets a hand or arm out it wakes him up every time because he startles himself awake.  He's a Houdini like Avery.

you can see how gets his hand up through the sleeper

Ellie, so far, is our best sleeper.  Like Avery, she will often lie in her crib with her eyes open for a while just looking around, but unlike Avery she usually drifts off to sleep fairly peacefully.   When she does cry it is this heart-wrenching sad little cry.  Thank goodness for Ellie or we might not make it!

winner of the best sleeper award! (and best hair!)

We've read a bunch of books, and are mostly using strategies from Healthy Sleep, Happy Twins and Babywise, but it's still hard to know what the best strategy is for sleep in any given moment.  They're all in their own cribs now rather than sharing one crib or the pack-n-play in our room because they've gotten too wiggly and if (when) they escaped from their swaddler they were waking each other up by whacking them in the face!  Sometimes it's their sheer will and strength that gets them out of the swaddle and sometimes it is grown-up error.  This picture is our best "swaddle fail" picture!

wow!  total fail!

We're focusing on getting them down in their cribs "drowsy but awake," but finding the balance with soothing and helping them learn to self soothe is still tricky.  And because they are preemies there is even less guidance because most of the books say that preemies will follow patterns post due date, but don't really tell you what the heck you should be doing until then! So we're doing our best to follow our instincts that still line up with the general concepts of flexible scheduling and a feed-wake-sleep pattern. Sometimes it feels like we're collectively doing well and other times it feels like big belly flop.  And of course it feels more flop-ish when we are flopping and not getting enough sleep!  Keep in mind that even on our "good" nights and days, we're still sleeping in 1-2 hour increments!  The picture below are the views of the cribs from our FosCam camera that we use to see who the culprit is when we hear screaming!  We don't love our view of Isaiah's crib so we might have to try mounting the camera closer to the middle of the room, but we can usually see him squirming and see his legs kicking up in the air when he's mad!

We have the best shot of Ellie...maybe we should re-think who is in which crib!

Isaiah on the left and Avery on the right