If one baby is adorable, three are even better. There is something magical about triplets that makes everyone turn their heads as they pass on the street. How delightful it is to see them together, bringing smiles to the faces of all those around them. We smile, and we go on with our day. But what about the mothers of those triplets? How do they keep smiles on their faces, and how in the world do they go on with their day? Let’s look at what a few mothers of triplets have to say about the experience.
Surprise!
When Naomi Grossman* found out that she was expecting
triplets, she was quite surprised. She had a one-year-old
at home and never expected him to be followed so soon by three little siblings! She notes, however, that it was not a foreign concept
to her, as in the year prior to her triplets’ birth, she knew of a few families
who had triplets. That knowledge helped with the initial shock, making
triplets seem like a somewhat normal, doable thing.
When Zehava Wasserman discovered her upcoming triple
blessing, she was both relieved and apprehensive. She had waited
five years after her marriage to be blessed with children, so the news was very
exciting.
Faigy Shpitz, however, had a very different reaction upon
being informed that she was carrying three. Faigy’s sister, an
ultrasound technician, was the first one to reveal the triplets. When her sister informed her, Faigy said she “just cried
from fear.” Her sister, meanwhile, was very excited and ran to tell
Faigy’s husband. Faigy says, “My husband just smiled. He’s a very calm, chilled, controlled person, which really
helped.”
Homecoming
Many mothers find it a somewhat incredible experience to
leave the house as one person and return a few days later as two. But what is it like to return home as a group of four? It’s an instant family! Naomi states that her
babies did not come home until they were six weeks old. She
first went to her parents’ house to recuperate from birth, while the babies
were still in the neonatal unit of the hospital. When the first baby was
discharged, she continued staying at her parents’ house, enjoying her mother’s assistance. When the second of the triplets was discharged, Naomi
moved, together with the two babies, to a mother-baby convalescent home. At about six weeks, when the third baby was finally sent
home, the Grossmans were more than ready to function as a family and took all
three babies home with them.
Zehava also did not go straight home from the hospital. The Wassermans moved in with Zehava’s parents for five
weeks after birth. This gave her time to recover a bit
from birth and to start learning the ropes of mothering triplets, all while
under the loving care of her family.
Faigy, however, was anxious to just get home to her own
place. She had been laid up for so many months before birth,
including a few weeks in the hospital before the birth, that she wanted to go
home already. Her babies were all nice sizes at birth and were
discharged right on time, along with their proud mother.
Private
Nursery
With feeding, burping, changing, bathing, and rocking, taking
care of even one newborn is time consuming. How does one manage
three at once? Naomi seems very calm. “The key,” she states, “is being
super organized.” The Grossmans set up a nursery in one room of their
apartment with all three cribs. They left the light on 24 hours a day, just as
in a hospital nursery. Naomi is grateful for the amazing
night nurse they hired from 11:00 p.m. until 7:00 a.m. five nights a week. This allowed the Grossmans some much needed rest and
enabled them to manage the triplets for the rest of the day. On the other two nights per week, various family members
took turns at the night shift. Just as in the
hospital, the nurse would bathe the babies every morning before leaving, thus
taking another job off off Naomi’s head.
Because her babies were very small, they had to eat quite
often. Naomi stresses the importance of being organized. She was always careful to mark down who ate, when, and how
much, along with keeping track of the babies’ diapers. In the mornings, Naomi
was home alone with the triplets, and in the afternoon, family members would
come to help. Naomi found it very challenging to have people come help;
it felt like an invasion of her family privacy. When the babies were
about six months old, Naomi put them into daycare and went back to work, happy
to return her family to a somewhat normal routine.
Zehava, too, describes the help that she relied on in those
first few hectic months. At first, she had a night nurse seven
days per week. When the triplets were four months old, the nurse came
only twice a week. The Wassermans also hired someone come
to their house and handle all the washing, cooking, and cleaning for a few
months. Zehava says that she got a lot of money towards help from
the government social security. They provide generous
stipends for mothers of multiples. Zehava is grateful that
she was able to afford not going to work at that time as well as for all of the
outside help she received. She states, “I don’t think it’s
physically possible for two people who want to have a bit of a life to manage
on their own.”
In contrast to Naomi and Zehava’s accounts of help, Faigy
seemed to manage on her own. The triplets came home six
weeks after the birth, and from then on, she was basically on her own. She never felt the need for a night nurse. Faigy’s babies all seemed to eat at the same time and then
allowed her a stretch of sleep. In the morning a
babysitter came to the house to help. When the triplets were
one year old, their little brother joined the family, so the Shpitzes had their
own little daycare with their in-house babysitter.
Toilet
Training
Toilet training is not for the faint of heart. Even the most experienced mothers will groan when they
have to start toilet training a child. How does one train
three children at the same time?
The Grossmans trained all three at once. Naomi says “They’re a club; they did everything together
from day one. We fed everyone together, changed everyone at once, bathed
them at once. Just as you do one, we did three!” She didn’t think twice
about training all three at the same time. Naomi says she also had
a lot of help from the daycare center where her triplets spent a good portion
of the day. In retrospect, Naomi states that one of her non-triplet
daughters was so hard to train that she found it was harder than training three
at once. In many ways, the triplets were easier than some of her
single children. They were rarely sick and were very good-natured babies. Toilet training all three went quite smoothly.
Faigy wholeheartedly agrees that training triplets was no
big deal. “If anything,” says Faigy, “It was easier! They had competition among themselves, so the training
went quite quickly.”
Zehava, on the other hand, trained each of her triplets
separately. One daughter was more mature and ready to be trained
first, followed by her sister, at about two-and-a-half years of age. Their brother was not quite ready and was trained a few
months later. Zehava says the training went very smoothly for each of
the three shifts.
Off to
School – Together?
When sending triplets to school, there is much to consider. Is it best to keep them together with their built-in best
friends, or to send them separately and allow each child to develop their own
identity? The Wassermans sent all three children to preschool
together at two-and-a-half years old. The following year, the
two girls remained together while the boy went to a different class.
The Shpitzes also sent the three to school together for the
first year of preschool, not necessarily because they believed in the children
being together but because one of them was too scared to go by herself. When they were four years old, they separated them into
parallel classes.
The Grossmans, on the other hand, feel that it’s healthier
for the triplets to be separated in social situations as soon as possible. “It’s imperative for them to develop on their own and to form
their own unique identity and their own friendships,” said Naomi. They therefore separated their children from the start of
their schooling and even sent the same gender triplets to different schools.
Three Individuals
or a Set?
When one sees a set of triplets, one assumes they are the
same. Often, triplets are called “The Triplets” instead of by
their individual names. How do the parents of multiples
maintain and develop their children’s individuality? Zehava states that her
son naturally was not paired with the girls once they were in separate schools. The two girls, however, are often viewed as a pair and
compared to each other. Zehava made sure not to dress them in
matching clothes to combat that phenomenon. She doesn’t feel that they
have to take great measures to help each girl develop her individuality. “They are just so different,” she says. “Because of their differences, they developed their own
lives and friendships.” They have different personalities,
different hobbies, and different friends, so they naturally each have their
individuality.
Faigy also never dressed her triplets in matching clothes. She is very against that as she feels it stunts their
individuality. She states that her son was always a bit separated due to the
gender difference, and the two girls were always in separate classes and had
their own friends. “They’re not similar,” she says of her
girls, “not in looks or in nature.” Her son, says Faigy, is
a cross between the two girls in personality.
The Grossmans also emphatically state that the triplets are
three separate entities. “We don’t look at them as a group,”
says Naomi. “They’re no more than regular siblings, other than the
historical fact that they were born together.” So, it seems that the
families of the triplets view them as three individuals with three separate
identities. The problem of grouping tends to come more from outsiders
who don’t know them well.
Family
Dynamics
How do the triplets deal with their “triplet-hood,” and how
do the other children in the family view them? Naomi says there is
always going to be some sort of competition among the triplets, but that exists
in every house, between all siblings. The triplets are very
close to each other and care about each other a lot, but again, she stresses,
no more than any other siblings. “I always told myself: I try my hardest to do
my best and I cannot do any more than that. Each placement in a
family has its benefits and the opposite. I didn’t ask for this,
I just do my best.”
Faigy, however, feels that the level of competition between
the triplets is more than between regular siblings. At one point, she says, her son thought that the two girls
were against him. Baruch Hashem, he outgrew that, but a certain level
of competition will always exist. The other children in
the family, however, think nothing of the fact that they have triplet siblings. “They’re used to it; this is the family they were born
into. Raising triplets,” says Faigy, “is an experience that is very joint; they’re
never bored, always have playmates. I love the action!”
Zehava echoes Faigy’s sentiments about competition. She says her triplets have a good connection with each
other and the girls are very close with their brother. But, she says, there is
definitely competition, especially regarding grades, as one is smarter than the
other. “I drill into them again and again that middos
matter,” says Zehava, “but they have to realize that themselves. The other children in the family are very proud of the
fact that they have triplets. The three don’t get any
extra privileges, but they do get extra attention. They find it funny when
people outside the family make a big deal about the fact that they are
triplets.”
Although it seems that triplets are becoming more and
more common, it still causes heads to turn and tongues to wag. While many of us find raising individual children to be
enough of a challenge, there are those who were blessed with three at once. Let us end with a bracha that the One who gave them
triplets should give these special families all the strength they need to
properly raise their triple blessing!
