Skip to main content

Tripletsitting, as told by jandalize

By Unknown

Editor's note:  The following my twitter friend's account of her first time babysitting for brother's triplets:

Five hours, three babies. It can’t be that hard, can it? That’s what I told myself the week before babysitting my six week old triplet niece and nephews. But, as the time grew near, the more frightened I was to care for that many newborns at the same time.

I’m a seasoned babysitter. My first job, at the age of thirteen, was babysitting a newborn and a four year old five days a week. I briefly worked in a daycare during high school, and I have 18 and 16 year old daughters that I have somehow raised without scaring for life. All my previous experience is exactly why I enlisted the help of three others for this epic babysitting adventure!

I learned that the key to caring for multiple babies is a well-kept schedule. Feedings and diaper changes can only be kept up with when written down. My sister-in-law neatly presented the newborn schedule of events in notebook form that insured we stayed on track. It worked well as one hour into the night I already couldn’t remember which baby had a fresh diaper and which baby needed to eat.

Even with three others at my side, it seemed there was hardly a moments rest. Diapers. Feeding. Burping. Wiping. Soothing. Walking. Bouncing. Diapers. Feeding. Burping. Wiping. Soothing. Walking. Bouncing. It was a never-ending cycle, a baby ‘Groundhog Day’ without Bill Murray.

In the five hours I was there, all three babies all slept at the same time for maybe 20 minutes. In a 24 hour day it’s safe to say my sister-in-law may get about three hours of sleep. How she does it is beyond me other than the fact that when you’re caring for something you love that much it seems to be a natural thing to have the energy to overcome a little sleep deprivation. Either that or she is living off adrenaline. Maybe a little of both.

They cried, we were slightly dazed, but we all came through it unharmed. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat! They will grow up in the blink of an eye and I want to witness as much of their lives as possible
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NIGHTMARE: Three Kids; One Invite

By Unknown
Its a triplet parents worst nightmare, really. I only have triplets, so most of what I;m about to say about singletons is conjecture and assumption, but here goes: I imagine that when you have three kids of different ages its easy when only one of them is invited to a birthday party. Any younger child is probably interested in where an older sibling is going, but is easily refocused. Older children probably just don't care what a younger child is doing, but to the extent they are invested, I'd think its easy to explain to them. After all, they are probably in different schools, or at least different grades. They have different teachers, different classmates, and while they may share some friends, those are largely different as well. Not so with triplets When you have three kids all the same age they attend the same  school; often in the same class (as ours do). So when only one of them receives an invite, as our daughter did, its hard not  to feel slighted. After all, ...
6 comments
Read more

Thoughts On Breastfeeding

By Unknown
I was going to post in this space about breastfeeding eventually.  It started when I joined Twitter recently as @triplethedad (follow me!) and started following a bunch of Mom and Dad types.  Although I previously experienced the ferver of the breastfeeding crowd, I was still taken aback by the militartism of some of them and the "us against them" attitude. I knew I would have to address it at some point, but honestly, as a Dad to formula fed triplets, I don't have a lot of experience or knowledge.  And further, while I'm not 100% comfortable around breastfeeding women, I have no problem with them/it and realize what they are doing is totally and completely natural.  So, between the lack of deep understanding and acceptance, I wasn't sure where to start.  What I did know was that I wanted to address the unnecassary ferver around the topic and the seeming war between formula and breast. Luckily, Jamie Lynn of Iamnotthebabysitter.com beat me to it in a post o...
2 comments
Read more

Nature v. Nurture; Nature Wins Everytime

By Unknown
Many parents have probably looked beamingly at their children and thought “what a wonderful job I did.” At times, at least. But what about the bad seed? Are parents responsible for that one, as well? These questions come down to whether our children arise from “nature” or “nurture.” Is it the genes we give them at birth, or the jeans we wear when we play with them that molds them, so to speak. Most parents don’t get a good shot at any type of scientific look at this. Even if you have three kids, they are likely spaced out over various periods in life featuring different levels of income, stress and parental availability. If nothing else, life is different with one than three, meaning that first one probably received a different level of attention – at least at first. But I’m somewhat unique here: I have all 3 at once. Same circumstances; same income; same attention. Its that experience that leads me to the belief that its definitely nature and not nurture. DS1 is a laugh machin...
1 comment
Read more