Having Triplets
- Thread starter afat
- Start date
flyingdoggystyle
100+ Posts
First off, congrats! We have twins and they are amazing. Adding one more -- well, just more fun.
If your wife's OB is not familiar with multiples, switch to one that does. Don't be afraid to press for details about plans for pre-term labor prevention, the hospital where they plan to deliver, and the schedule for visits until the babies are born. We are in Austin and I was unimpressed with our OB but can't say enough about the great people at Texas Perinatal. I highly recommend that if you are in Austin you insist that the OB put your wife through the program. Also, pick up a copy of the book When you are Expecting Twins, Triplets, Quads or more. Lots off good info there.
Our kids were born at 34 weeks, which is ballpark for triplets as I recall. They spent 5+ weeks in the NICU all of which adds up quickly. If you don't have top-notch health insurance, I suggest you pick some up. The single most important thing you guys can do is to keep the kids inside as long as possible. So, help with lots of protein and fat to put on the weight recommended by the OB.
Having two newborns at home is tough, so I'm not going to sugar coat it -- three will be more work. I suggest you enlist help: parents, siblings, nieces, friends, people from church, pretty much anyone. Don't feel bad about asking for help because you will need it. What helped us was my wife's mom came over every day at 6 and watched the kids until noon or so. It would allow my wife to get pretty much the only solid sleep all day. Having someone help you so you can sleep is key.
As far as companies or institutions providing benefits for parents of multiples, I have not heard of anything. It may be different for trips, but not to my knowledge.
Good luck!!
If your wife's OB is not familiar with multiples, switch to one that does. Don't be afraid to press for details about plans for pre-term labor prevention, the hospital where they plan to deliver, and the schedule for visits until the babies are born. We are in Austin and I was unimpressed with our OB but can't say enough about the great people at Texas Perinatal. I highly recommend that if you are in Austin you insist that the OB put your wife through the program. Also, pick up a copy of the book When you are Expecting Twins, Triplets, Quads or more. Lots off good info there.
Our kids were born at 34 weeks, which is ballpark for triplets as I recall. They spent 5+ weeks in the NICU all of which adds up quickly. If you don't have top-notch health insurance, I suggest you pick some up. The single most important thing you guys can do is to keep the kids inside as long as possible. So, help with lots of protein and fat to put on the weight recommended by the OB.
Having two newborns at home is tough, so I'm not going to sugar coat it -- three will be more work. I suggest you enlist help: parents, siblings, nieces, friends, people from church, pretty much anyone. Don't feel bad about asking for help because you will need it. What helped us was my wife's mom came over every day at 6 and watched the kids until noon or so. It would allow my wife to get pretty much the only solid sleep all day. Having someone help you so you can sleep is key.
As far as companies or institutions providing benefits for parents of multiples, I have not heard of anything. It may be different for trips, but not to my knowledge.
Good luck!!
Congratulations! You're in for an amazing ride.
I second all of flying's comments. My wife and I had twins in April. And, I have to admit, it was alot tougher then I thought it was going to be, at least for the first couple of months. My wife and I would comfort each other by saying that at least we didn't have triplets.
To reiterate flying's point, seek help wherever you can find it (relatives, friends, church, etc.) and never turn down help when its offered. If someone wants to come visit, ask them if they wouldn't mind stopping on the way and picking up whatever it is you might need at the moment (diapers, formula, etc.).
I'm not sure where you're located (we're in Austin) but my wife gets a lot of help and useful info from the Austin Mothers of Multiples group. www.austinmoms.org/
We bought multiple books (pun intended) but this one was particularly helpful: Raising Multiple Birth Children
Two other books we found to be useful are the BabyBargains and Baby411 books. These books are helpful no matter how many kids you're having.
Baby Bargains
Baby411
Good luck to you and your wife!
I second all of flying's comments. My wife and I had twins in April. And, I have to admit, it was alot tougher then I thought it was going to be, at least for the first couple of months. My wife and I would comfort each other by saying that at least we didn't have triplets.
To reiterate flying's point, seek help wherever you can find it (relatives, friends, church, etc.) and never turn down help when its offered. If someone wants to come visit, ask them if they wouldn't mind stopping on the way and picking up whatever it is you might need at the moment (diapers, formula, etc.).
I'm not sure where you're located (we're in Austin) but my wife gets a lot of help and useful info from the Austin Mothers of Multiples group. www.austinmoms.org/
We bought multiple books (pun intended) but this one was particularly helpful: Raising Multiple Birth Children
Two other books we found to be useful are the BabyBargains and Baby411 books. These books are helpful no matter how many kids you're having.
Baby Bargains
Baby411
Good luck to you and your wife!
Congratulations!
Our triplets are turning one year old on Saturday. While we were scared at first, now we can't imagine life without them. They are an incredible blessing. The above posts are full of good advice. Finding an OB who is experienced/comfortable with multiples is key. Getting through the pregnancy will definitely be challenging, but y'all can do it. Also I second the comment re keeping them in utero as long as possible. My wife carried ours until 38 1/2 weeks (she insists on getting credit for the last 1/2 week!), and they were only in the ICU for 7, 10, and 11 days. None had to be on a vent, and only the little girl had trouble feeding at first. That being said, it was really hard on the wife those last 8 weeks.
Things you should be doing now: buying diapers. I'm not kidding, you will not believe how fast you'll go through those things. Also, I don't think the govt or Oprah, etc help you out these days unless you have like 8, so you're kind of on your own on that.
I third the point on not turning down help. You and she will be sleep deprived, stressed, scared. Also, make it clear that anyone "dropping in" to see the kiddos will be put to work. Feeding, changing diapers, bathing can all be done while socializing. Nothing will make your wife more furious than a friend or family member standing idly by while you and she juggle three babies. This person will usually be chitchatting about herself and inevitably will chime in with a "gosh, you guys sure have your hands full." You may have to physically restrain your wife at this point.
If you are in a Sunday school class or other social group, ask someone to coordinate meals from classmates, family, other friends, and even neighbors for when you get home. Casseroles are best; break them down into smaller portions and freeze them (did I mention you need to put a deep freeze on layaway?) to thaw a little at a time. We hardly had to cook for the first 6 weeks, and that was a huge help.
I'll try and post the books my wife read when I find them, but the most important book IMO is On Becoming Baby Wise. Its principles can be applied to multiples, and we swear by it. Our 4 year old was sleeping through the night at 8 weeks, and the triplets were sleeping 8 hours a night by 12 weeks and 7p to 7a by 4 months. Having them on the same sleep schedule will be key to your survival.
We are big believers in breast feeding, but it is difficult with three. My wife tried several methods, and we settled on rotating a different child on the breast each feeding time, and feeding the other two with pumped breast milk and supplementing with formula. Unfortunately, they WILL go to the neonatal ICU for awhile even if all goes perfectly, but this will allow you to store up some breast milk to freeze. This is one time where a lactation consultant is helpful. My wife breastfed around 4 months IIRC, which was long enough to get the immune benefit at least.
If you can, get friends or family to volunteer to help with night feeds. If you can't do that, and you can at all afford it, hire someone to come in from 11 or 12 to 5 or 6, at least for the first six weeks. One of you can do the "early" night feed with the helper while the other sleeps. Then that person can sleep through the "late" night feed, while the other gets up. You'd be amazed how much better you feel getting 5 or 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep.
My wife didn't find the mothers of multiples group in our area very helpful, but it may be where y'all are. Also, there is the triplet connection, which has lots of great info as well as a bbs which my wife did find helpful. PM me if you have any specific questions, or if you want to talk or if your wife would like to talk to mine. Good luck and God bless you both!
Our triplets are turning one year old on Saturday. While we were scared at first, now we can't imagine life without them. They are an incredible blessing. The above posts are full of good advice. Finding an OB who is experienced/comfortable with multiples is key. Getting through the pregnancy will definitely be challenging, but y'all can do it. Also I second the comment re keeping them in utero as long as possible. My wife carried ours until 38 1/2 weeks (she insists on getting credit for the last 1/2 week!), and they were only in the ICU for 7, 10, and 11 days. None had to be on a vent, and only the little girl had trouble feeding at first. That being said, it was really hard on the wife those last 8 weeks.
Things you should be doing now: buying diapers. I'm not kidding, you will not believe how fast you'll go through those things. Also, I don't think the govt or Oprah, etc help you out these days unless you have like 8, so you're kind of on your own on that.
I third the point on not turning down help. You and she will be sleep deprived, stressed, scared. Also, make it clear that anyone "dropping in" to see the kiddos will be put to work. Feeding, changing diapers, bathing can all be done while socializing. Nothing will make your wife more furious than a friend or family member standing idly by while you and she juggle three babies. This person will usually be chitchatting about herself and inevitably will chime in with a "gosh, you guys sure have your hands full." You may have to physically restrain your wife at this point.
If you are in a Sunday school class or other social group, ask someone to coordinate meals from classmates, family, other friends, and even neighbors for when you get home. Casseroles are best; break them down into smaller portions and freeze them (did I mention you need to put a deep freeze on layaway?) to thaw a little at a time. We hardly had to cook for the first 6 weeks, and that was a huge help.
I'll try and post the books my wife read when I find them, but the most important book IMO is On Becoming Baby Wise. Its principles can be applied to multiples, and we swear by it. Our 4 year old was sleeping through the night at 8 weeks, and the triplets were sleeping 8 hours a night by 12 weeks and 7p to 7a by 4 months. Having them on the same sleep schedule will be key to your survival.
We are big believers in breast feeding, but it is difficult with three. My wife tried several methods, and we settled on rotating a different child on the breast each feeding time, and feeding the other two with pumped breast milk and supplementing with formula. Unfortunately, they WILL go to the neonatal ICU for awhile even if all goes perfectly, but this will allow you to store up some breast milk to freeze. This is one time where a lactation consultant is helpful. My wife breastfed around 4 months IIRC, which was long enough to get the immune benefit at least.
If you can, get friends or family to volunteer to help with night feeds. If you can't do that, and you can at all afford it, hire someone to come in from 11 or 12 to 5 or 6, at least for the first six weeks. One of you can do the "early" night feed with the helper while the other sleeps. Then that person can sleep through the "late" night feed, while the other gets up. You'd be amazed how much better you feel getting 5 or 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep.
My wife didn't find the mothers of multiples group in our area very helpful, but it may be where y'all are. Also, there is the triplet connection, which has lots of great info as well as a bbs which my wife did find helpful. PM me if you have any specific questions, or if you want to talk or if your wife would like to talk to mine. Good luck and God bless you both!
Reading these posts has stimulated my sleep deprived brain so here are a few more thoughts for you.
1. Hospital/NICU – Take a tour of your hospital and NICU. Meet the staff and have them explain their procedures, the equipment, etc. to you. It looks very intimidating and scary the first few times you see a baby in the NICU so it definitely helps to at least have a basic understanding of what’s going on. Only one of our twins had to spend time in the NICU (about a week). Also, be prepared to bring your babies home at different times. We hated leaving one behind but it did give us a chance to “practice” with one baby at home before we had them both.
Speaking of, when your babies are actually in the NICU, don’t just stand around and watch. Jump in and start doing. Our NICU nurses encouraged it and I think they appreciated it when we changed our baby’s diapers and fed her. It was one less thing for them to worry about. Most importantly, you can start bonding with your baby immediately. Be forewarned though, it’s bad enough changing a newborn’s diaper, but when you’re changing a newborn’s diaper in the incubator it can be downright terrifying (at least it was for me the first few times). But, soon enough you’ll be changing diapers like you’ve been doing it your whole life (and after a couple of weeks it will feel like you have been).
Sawbonz: Kudos to your wife for carrying triplets to 38 ½ weeks; very impressive. My wife made it to 36 weeks and we consider ourselves fortunate. One of our twins wasn’t feeding properly so she dictated our early delivery.
2. Breastfeeding – For some women, producing breast milk is no problem. For most women, I don’t believe this is the case. My wife was in the latter category. And, in fact, this was probably the hardest part of the pregnancy for my wife. My wife was miserable b/c she wasn’t producing much milk and she couldn’t get our babies to latch on to start breastfeeding; she felt like an absolute failure as a mother. Eventually, my wife did start producing milk but it wasn’t enough to feed both babies so we’ve had to supplement with formula. Hopefully, it will be “easy” for your wife but be prepared.
3. Schedule – We adhered to a pretty strict schedule for feeding and eventually, bedtime. We just followed the same feeding schedule the NICU started for our littlest one: every 3 hours. You’ll feel like you’re doing nothing but feeding, cleaning up and preparing for the next feeding but I can’t imagine doing it any other way for multiples. This meant that if our babies were sleeping and it was feeding time, we woke them up. A lot of folks we know didn’t understand this and would tell us “you should never wake a sleeping baby.” But, we did and it worked very well for us. This also meant that when it was feeding time, it was feeding time whether we had visitors or not. Do not feel like you have to accommodate your visitors’ schedule. In fact we set up visitors hours and let people know it was better if they stopped by between the hours of x and y. They could come by at other times but we made sure they understand what our schedule was and what we would be doing while they were there.
4. Washer/Dryer – Make sure you have a reliable, heavy duty washer and dryer. You’re going to be doing a lot of laundry and you don’t want them to breakdown.
5. Other Resources – We’ve got a few books on premature births and one on multiples that you’re welcome to if you’d like them. The titles are: The Multiple Pregnancy Sourcebook, Bowers, The Premature Baby Book, Sears, What To Do When Your Baby is Premature, Garcia-Prats, and The Essential Guide for Parents of Premature Babies, Linden. Just send me a pm or email me if you’re interested or if you have any other questions.
Again, good luck!
1. Hospital/NICU – Take a tour of your hospital and NICU. Meet the staff and have them explain their procedures, the equipment, etc. to you. It looks very intimidating and scary the first few times you see a baby in the NICU so it definitely helps to at least have a basic understanding of what’s going on. Only one of our twins had to spend time in the NICU (about a week). Also, be prepared to bring your babies home at different times. We hated leaving one behind but it did give us a chance to “practice” with one baby at home before we had them both.
Speaking of, when your babies are actually in the NICU, don’t just stand around and watch. Jump in and start doing. Our NICU nurses encouraged it and I think they appreciated it when we changed our baby’s diapers and fed her. It was one less thing for them to worry about. Most importantly, you can start bonding with your baby immediately. Be forewarned though, it’s bad enough changing a newborn’s diaper, but when you’re changing a newborn’s diaper in the incubator it can be downright terrifying (at least it was for me the first few times). But, soon enough you’ll be changing diapers like you’ve been doing it your whole life (and after a couple of weeks it will feel like you have been).
Sawbonz: Kudos to your wife for carrying triplets to 38 ½ weeks; very impressive. My wife made it to 36 weeks and we consider ourselves fortunate. One of our twins wasn’t feeding properly so she dictated our early delivery.
2. Breastfeeding – For some women, producing breast milk is no problem. For most women, I don’t believe this is the case. My wife was in the latter category. And, in fact, this was probably the hardest part of the pregnancy for my wife. My wife was miserable b/c she wasn’t producing much milk and she couldn’t get our babies to latch on to start breastfeeding; she felt like an absolute failure as a mother. Eventually, my wife did start producing milk but it wasn’t enough to feed both babies so we’ve had to supplement with formula. Hopefully, it will be “easy” for your wife but be prepared.
3. Schedule – We adhered to a pretty strict schedule for feeding and eventually, bedtime. We just followed the same feeding schedule the NICU started for our littlest one: every 3 hours. You’ll feel like you’re doing nothing but feeding, cleaning up and preparing for the next feeding but I can’t imagine doing it any other way for multiples. This meant that if our babies were sleeping and it was feeding time, we woke them up. A lot of folks we know didn’t understand this and would tell us “you should never wake a sleeping baby.” But, we did and it worked very well for us. This also meant that when it was feeding time, it was feeding time whether we had visitors or not. Do not feel like you have to accommodate your visitors’ schedule. In fact we set up visitors hours and let people know it was better if they stopped by between the hours of x and y. They could come by at other times but we made sure they understand what our schedule was and what we would be doing while they were there.
4. Washer/Dryer – Make sure you have a reliable, heavy duty washer and dryer. You’re going to be doing a lot of laundry and you don’t want them to breakdown.
5. Other Resources – We’ve got a few books on premature births and one on multiples that you’re welcome to if you’d like them. The titles are: The Multiple Pregnancy Sourcebook, Bowers, The Premature Baby Book, Sears, What To Do When Your Baby is Premature, Garcia-Prats, and The Essential Guide for Parents of Premature Babies, Linden. Just send me a pm or email me if you’re interested or if you have any other questions.
Again, good luck!
I'd like to thank everyone for your responses. They gave me quite a bit of comfort over the last couple of weeks. Unfortunately we found out yesterday that the twins aren't going to make it. It looks like they stopped growing at 6 weeks. It has been a very strange day. On one hand we're devastated that we've lost two children that we'd become very attached too, and on the other hand we're relieved that the remaining one will get to go full term before it is born.
It is the most odd and and horrible emotion I've ever gone through.
It is the most odd and and horrible emotion I've ever gone through.
NCAAFBALLROX
1,000+ Posts
I am sorry for your loss.
While everyone's experiences are vastly different, my wife had a miscarriage before our first daughter was born & it was no less devastating to her.
You are in all of our thoughts.
While everyone's experiences are vastly different, my wife had a miscarriage before our first daughter was born & it was no less devastating to her.
You are in all of our thoughts.
C
C.L. McLovin
Guest
A friend of mine and his wife lost their baby the day it was to be born. It is a horrible swing of emotions. I am sad for your loss but just know that all that were here to help with information will be here with support as well. There are hundreds of us so you can say whatever you like and whatever you are feeling without being judged. You are not alone. You have us, random strangers, who care very much.
G
gardere_owns_OU
Guest
Jesus, I'm sorry to hear about that. if you read my previous post, please ignore it. i was basing it off your original post.
sorry.
sorry.
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