A normal days schedule

Many of you wonder just what a dad of triplets does all day long.  In this post I will try to give you some insight on how a typical day goes for us.

The girls get up somewhere between seven and eight and eat.  First I have to carry them downstairs and put them in their high chairs to eat.  Eating involves bottles followed by solid foods.  After the bottles, I try to give the girls breakfast type foods, this ranges from yogurt to oatmeal to fruit and to cereal.  The girls love fruit and cheerios.  A funny thing we have found out about fruit is that watermelon stains their clothing much more than you would think.  After eating the diapers all need to be changed before they are put in the play room to play.  Within half an hour of changing the diapers I will have to change at least one girl who is now stinky.  The girls play in the playroom until around 10 or 10:30 at which point they get fussy and I carry them all back upstairs to take a nap.  While they nap I make the bottles for the rest of the day and for the following morning.  They sleep for about an hour at which time I carry them back down stairs so they can play until noon when they eat next.  At noon I carry them back to their high chairs so they can eat bottles followed by solid foods.  Lately this has consisted of baby stage 3 foods.  After the stage 3 foods I give them something else that they can feed themselves, such as bread.  After the noon feeding I then change the girls again and put them back in the playroom so they can continue playing.  The girls will now play until two at which time I will carry them upstairs again so they can take their long nap.  If I am lucky the girls will all go straight to sleep and will sleep until 4 at which time I will carry them back downstairs to their high chairs so they can eat again.  Again they get bottles and some solid foods.  After eating I change more diapers and carry them back into the playroom.  The girls then play in the playroom until Sarah gets home from work, at which time we get supper ready while we move the girls back into the high chairs to give them food while we eat.  We have found that letting them eat finger foods while we eat make it more enjoyable for us since the girls are occupied eating.  After eating the girls play some more until 7:30 at which time we usually give them rice cereal.  At 8 we give the girls their last bottles and if all goes well we carry them back upstairs so they can go to sleep.  On bath nights after the 7:30 rice we carry the girls upstairs to bathe them and after the bath we carry them back downstairs to the highchairs to take their bottles so then we can carry them back upstairs to put them in their cribs.

Once the girls are sleeping there is still a lot to do.  The dishwasher needs to be loaded with all the bottles of the day.  The playroom needs to be cleaned.  The high chairs need to be cleaned as well as all the food residue that is now on the floor under the highchairs.  The bath tub needs to be cleaned since there is probably food residue in it also.

Once all the cleaning is done Sarah and I get ready for bed so we can do it all over the next day.  It is a busy day and we know the next day will be just as busy.  We go to bed hoping that no one wakes up during the middle of the night.

I think there are a few things that everyone needs to think about as they read this post.
1.  I can only carry one child at a time up and down the stairs (If we ever had triplets again, the first thing I would do is sell our house and buy a one story house or maybe it would be acceptable to use a dumb waiter)
2.  the girls still enjoy being held, so this is done frequently in the playroom
3.  grocery shopping, laundry, and cleaning of the house need to be done on at least a weekly basis among other things.
4.  High chairs need to be cleaned after every feeding that way they are clean for the next feeding.

I have been told that this post looks boring or plain without a picture so to add some color to the post, here is a picture of the playroom when it is clean, and one at the end of a day of play.  Sometimes the room looks even messier than this when the girls decide they want to pull up the floor mat.