It has been a while since we last heard from Emma our amazing triplet mum. But she is back with more tales about how the triplets told her they were ready to move to beds!
The two things I dreaded facing as a triplet Mummy were putting the girls into beds and toilet training. My first born, Isla was a complete breeze with both, achieving both within the same week with minimal fuss but I just knew life would not be that easy when it came to triple trouble!
At aged 23 months the girls learnt how to climb out of their cots. When I say climb, I mean literally launch themselves over the sides and hope for the best. We even had cot hopping, cot riots and curtains being pulled down from the pole. Bed time took on a whole new level of sleep training and my husband and I spent many nights eating our dinner, with me in tears and the clatter of banging above our heads, as the girls ran riot in their bedroom. Drastic measures were taken to minimise the fun, all toys were removed from the room, all their cupboard drawers and doors were anchored down with safety catches. All they had to play with was literally each other and the teddies in their cots. It was time for beds.
Going into beds was ok at first. The novelty of being able to climb in and out independently seemed to please the girls and for the first few weeks we thought we were onto a winner. How wrong could I be. On Christmas Eve Rob and I lay in bed, enjoying the last few minutes of peace before we got up and started another busy day. I felt slightly un-nerved by the lack of noise coming from the girls’ bedroom so went along to investigate. On my arrival the room looked like a scene from a horror film. Blood splattered across the windows, curtains and all three children. Martha was standing very proudly on the window sill about to launch herself off like some kind of acrobat and the other two were sat surrounded by more blood, smashed porcelain piggy banks and pound coins shoved in their mouths. How was I going to explain to Nanny Carol that her beautiful piggy banks were no longer and how many pound coins were going to come out in their nappies?!
Code red was called to Rob and before long, his idyllic Christmas Eve relaxation was replaced with dismantling beds and re-arranging the girls’ bedroom once more. Now I can laugh about this ‘incident’ and I have a constant reminder of blood splattered on the back of their curtains but at the time I thought I was raising animals!
Sleep training in beds is a whole other chapter of our lives and something I have tried to shelter my fellow multiple Mummy friends from. For us, it has not been easy and we had months of a whole lot of stress, over-tired children and parents and a rather large consumption of wine and chocolate. Once we had cracked bed time, chicken pox struck us and this was where our toilet training journey began………..
No matter how much trouble the can cause, I feel totally blessed to be bringing up the triplets with their older sister. Not one of them has the easiest start to life having spend many days under the care of the neonatal unit. Unfortunately many children, whether its just one, twins or triplets have to spend time in care for various reasons and mine were all premature and required a little assistance.
Table of Contents
If you have missed the earlier stories from  ‘Emma’s Triplet Tales, click the links below.
Tales from a Triplet Mum
More Tales from a Triplet Mum
If you have an amazing story you would like to share with us, please do get in touch!