As we have started on this journey with Brinlee, Kimball, and Sawyer being home with us (well, mostly home with us and anxiously awaiting for Sawyer to rejoin us), obviously our lives have changed. April has been doing most of the posting as of late and no, I don’t really have an excuse as to why I haven’t been posting…at least not a good one.
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/Brinlee and Kimball are doing well at home. They seem to be quite tame as babies, probably due to their six week stay in the NICU (this includes Sawyer). After being handled, changed, fed, and annoyed by two different nurses every day for six weeks, they are used to just about everything and only cry when they are either hungry, need to burp, or if I am irritating them. We are co-bedding them in the same crib (I don’t know if we had stated this here or not). This works well for the most part, although it is pretty comical to watch Kimball jump in his sleep when Brinlee lets out her signature shriek. Amazingly, he usually stays asleep while the rest of the house still is recovering.
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/People often ask what our schedule is, so here it is. They are on a four hour feeding schedule. At each feeding time, they are fed, have their diapers changed, and burped. Often, when they are done eating, they are put back to bed as they still need to mostly be sleeping and growing. They still aren’t even supposed to be outside yet! (Although they will reach their 40 week due date one week from today -December 20th.) Thus, the triplets eat at 7 am, 11 am, 3 pm, 7 pm, 11 pm, and 3 am. Up until now and continuing at least until Christmas, we have had three sets of hands and have divvied up these feeding times. As Brinlee and Kimball’s schedules are offset by 30 minutes, one person is often able to do a feeding by him/herself. This has worked amazingly well and has actually allowed us to get pretty decent sleep.Â
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/As I think April stated in one of her posts, we are often asked why we don’t look more tired. So what is life really like for a triplet dad? Well, I’m a beginner to all things baby, not just all things baby X 3. I don’t believe I had ever changed a diaper before in my life. I now change probably 6-12 a day depending on how many feedings I have the luxury of attending. I don’t believe that I ever held many young infants either as I was usually terrified of breaking them. Well, I’m getting over that fear as these three flop their way around in my arms and keep smiling. They are breaking me in quickly and with gusto. Physically, being a triplet dad hasn’t been too bad yet, although I think we are having a smooth road that will surely become bumpy at some point.Â
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/Could I use more sleep, sure, but so could most of America. Not that I thought it would be easy, but having triplets has turned out to be more emotionally and mentally straining that I would have thought (and you can ask those that know me well, I am not an emotional character…something that often drives April insane). I work in a high-stress environment and use to view home as my low-stress escape, but that has definitely switched and work has become my escape…albeit a heart-wrenching escape every morning. The amount of stress is always high with Sawyer gone to the hospital (adding an 1.5 hour roundtrip driving time to visit him), with all three of them on monitors in case they forget to BREATHE or if their heart decides to STOP BEATING, and with the constant care and thought needed to prepare and survive a day with triplets.Â
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/No, no nervous breakdowns yet, but I’ll post here if one is up and coming so I can have an audience. Has the beginning of this experience been rewarding? Definitely. And although we understand to some small degree the difficulty of the upcoming road (the terrible twos X 3, etc.), we know these kids are supposed to be here with us and that in the end of all the growth, battles, and fun times, all five of us will still be standing.
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/Brinlee, Sawyer, and Kimball are amazing and we watch them progress every day. They now lift up their heads for short spans of time to watch us. Their eyes now follow objects. I think their smiles are becoming actual smiles instead of simple reflexes. I promise some pictures soon. We have been so busy with Sawyer gone to the hospital that we haven’t taken many. Plus, it is depressing to look at the empty spot that he occupied in the crib and pack n play and that has probably been demotivational.