One of the most frequently asked questions from parents of newborn multiples is, “When does it get easier?  It DOES get easier, right?”  The answers from experienced parents vary from, “When they start sleeping through the night,” to “It doesn’t get easier – the hard stuff just changes.”

For some reason, I always seem to reflect upon the changes that have occurred with my girls during the holiday season.  I have an easy benchmark with our annual family Christmas party.  My husband’s family is quite large by today’s standards.  He has twelve siblings and twenty-some nieces and nephews, most of whom are over the age of eighteen.  Because there are so many people, a hall is usually rented and the party takes place just before or just after Christmas day. 

My girls were eight months old for their first Christmas.  They could sit up and play independently but were not yet crawling.  We brought one Pack-n-play with us as I was not about to place them on the floor (of questionable cleaniness) of the function room where the party was taking place.  My mom offered to come and assist which was a tremendous help as we would have one adult for each baby.

We weren’t able to socialize much and eating was, well, you know how that goes when caring for multiple babies, but we survived.  The girls were still taking three naps a day at that age and one of their naps fell right in the middle of the time we would be at the party.  With three adults, we had the luxury of holding them for a short nap – something that normally does not take place when you have three infants.

The girls were twenty months old for their second Christmas, which made it a bit easier but also more difficult.  They were mobile and still at the age where they put objects in their mouths and got into things they shouldn’t.

My mom, again, offered to join us to help watch the girls.  It was a bit crazy as they spent most of the time running around.  They still needed to be watched very closely and I felt as if I spend my entire time there counting, “One, two, three,” to ensure that no one went missing.  After finding a few small objects on the floor, I also spent some time scouring the place for choking hazards and setting up a make-shift baby gate around the trash cans.

The Christmas party this year was much more enjoyable.  The girls at two years and eight months old are much easier to care for and we have even reached the point where either my husband or I can easily care for all three. 

The girls are more into having fun and playing versus getting into things they shouldn’t.  There wasn’t much space at the hall this year so they didn’t have room to run around, which was fine by me.  We were all able to sit and eat as a family and socialize with other family members instead of chasing around three toddlers.

What is your view on “Does it get easier?”  Are you still waiting for it to get easier or have you noticed a difference?

Sarah is the mother to two and a half year old identical triplet girls – Allie, Anna and Emily – who were born at 35 weeks and 6 days.   You can read more about her crazy life raising triplets at The Great Umbrella Heist.

By the time I was sixteen, through various volunteer activities through church and the community, I had walked among shoeless children living in a ‘town’ of cardboard boxes they called home, served meals to the homeless and mentally ill, and had read books to a hospitalized girl my age who would succumb to cancer a few days later.

I guess maybe because I had been around people with so little, that holiday excess always made me a bit uncomfortable. Don’t get me wrong: I love getting or giving a good present. I’m just saying that gifts aren’t everything, you know? And the holiday season amplifies this for me even more.

As a teen, there are a few truths I learned in these volunteer experiences: more than likely, you actually have it pretty good even when you think you don’t; it’s almost impossible to remain intolerant if you’ve ever ventured outside of your comfort zone and served with sincerity; and, everyone deserves to feel loved.

The kids participated in their first help-our-neighbors experience last weekend when, as a family, we went to deliver a heater to a family who doesn’t have any heat in their home. We also took some diapers and wipes to a woman who went into pre-term labor the day after her husband was murdered. Two days after Thanksgiving. Sure, the kids aren’t really aware of their participation because BACKYARDIGANS! And we bought them those totally unnecessary flashing Christmas light sabers at the neighborhood parade that night. But we intend to foster a commitment to service in the community is the point.

We especially plan to bridle the commercial madness that is holiday gifting. The kids are still too young to know what to do with the gifts (or maybe it’s because we haven’t emphasized the present part that they lack interest), so we are taking the opportunity to cultivate Christmas gift traditions for our family.

Someone in my neighborhood group posted that they manage the potential excess by limiting kids’ gifts to four:

Something they want
Something they need
Something to wear
Something to read

We kinda like that. We’ll also add in adopting a family and/or children with the same ages as Mateo and Harper and get our kids involved in the deciding of what to get them.

As for the rest of the family, we are pretty lucky in that all our siblings are agreeable that each child gets only one gift from each of the other families. So, for example, our kids each get one gift from my sister’s family, and one gift from my brother’s family (and the adults do not exchange gifts). Grandparents, thankfully, are equally agreeable.

Managing the excess isn’t for everyone, however, and that doesn’t make it bad, either. I have a friend who firmly believes in spoiling the kids to the brink at Christmastime and that totally works for them. I just hope our kids don’t grow up to be friends with theirs because THE PRESSURE!

What are your gifting traditions and/or gifting traditions you intent to harvest?

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Rachel is the birth mom and one of two working mommies to twenty month old boy/girl twins. Her blog is: Motherhood.Squared

I grew up with three younger brothers and no sisters.  For the most part, my toys were my toys.  My brothers wanted nothing to do with my Barbie dolls, Cabbage Patch Kids and the like.  There were toys that we shared but I do not recall any big fights or incidences surrounding sharing.

My husband and I mistakenly believed that one advantage to having all girl triplets would be toy sharing.  We thought that we would not have to worry about purchasing trucks and dolls.  Baseballs and ballerina shoes.  That was all thrown out the window when we purchased three identical doll strollers.

My girls know how to share.  Whenever other children are in our home, they willingly play and share their toys.  They have never said, “That is mine,” to another child (except for their sisters).  The issue with sharing usually surrounds one playing by herself and a sister barging in to take away a toy.  I like to think of it this way – if I was happily playing by myself, off in an imaginative world, and someone ran in and swiped some of my Little People, I would be upset too.

The girls have taken over some of the toys as their own and it is a well known fact amongst the three of them what belongs to whom.  Allie has one of the Elmo dolls and a stuffed dinosaur, Anna has some of the dolls and Em has a little lion and, most recently, the pink piggy.  There are never any arguments surrounding those toys.   

I have never completed any research on this myself and I do not claim to be a child psychiatrist but another mother of mulitples told me that an expert she heard speak about raising multiples claims that each child should have his/her own toys in order to feel secure.  Interesting…

So I am the mom this holiday season who purchased three bathtime baby dolls, three baby doll bath tubs, three baby doll high chairs, three baby doll cribs and three sets of baby doll bottles.  The girls still have many ”shared” toys and will receive more as Christmas presents this year.  I am not about to buy three sets of Little People play sets.

What are your views on toy sharing?  Do you purchase toys in duplicate (or triplicate)?

Sarah is the mother to two and a half year old identical triplet girls – Allie, Anna and Emily – who were born at 35 weeks and 6 days.  She works full time as a Tax Director for Big Financial Institution and enjoys sharpening her photography skills with her daughters’ help.  You can read more about her crazy life raising triplets at The Great Umbrella Heist.