PSA for Parents of Triplets

The daunting first year of parenting triplets definitely includes but is not limited to:

... feeding and/or changing three babies every three hours

... weekly trips to the (fill in the blank) medical specialist

... slapping away a random stranger's hands when they want to touch your babies to see if they are "real"

... struggling with CIO (cry-it-out) to get them to sleep through the night

... creating a maze in your house with baby gates

... baby proofing cabinets-doors-etc with contraptions that would keep even a seasoned burglar out of your home, but can't seem to keep three toddlers out

... dodging unwanted sippy cups as they are hurtled at your forehead amongst screams for their "milky bottle"

... and them learning to climb out of their cribs.

The last challenge of that first year actually gives you options: crib tents or toddler beds. This is the quandary we faced when the boys started scaling their cribs and running down the halls during nap and bed times.

With one toddler, you can move them to a toddler bed and convince them to stay there with a couple days practice.

Or you can turn their crib upside down on top of them like my in laws did with my husband.

But with three, it becomes increasing difficult to get all three toddlers to stay in their bed for any length of time more than a nanosecond. They tend to follow the two codes of multiples: "Monkey See, Monkey Do" and The Wonder Pets philosophy of "Teamwork".

(I wish I could insert the picture of Hayden holding the kitchen stool while Noel climbed up the stool onto the counter and then handed the prized cookies on the counter to Tanner to demonstrate this "Teamwork" thing, but I was too busy trying to chase the boys down to recapture the cookies to grab my camera.)

Essentially, if one gets out, they ALL want out ... and they will work together to make it happen.

So unless you have three spare bedrooms hanging around ... Buh-bye, nap time! Hello, cranky and overly-tired boys!

So, on the seventh day, God invented crib tents. And it was good.

Crib tents?

"Like, you crate your babies?", as my husband's boss put it so tactfully.

Yup -- we crate them. But we think of it more like camping for toddlers. Here's tent city at our house.
They boys LOVE their crib tents ... so much so that when something goes wrong with a crib tent, it can be damaging to your ear drums.

Which brings me to my two-part PSA about crib tents.

(1) If you choose that crib tents are right for you, there is a company called Tots in Mind that will give you a 'Buy Two, Get One Free' deal. I recommend going with the Crib Tent II, but there is an early version still available as well.

(2) If your crib tent ... oh, I don't know ... gets a hole in it from 'Finding Nemo' keys being poked through the mesh, or gets torn on the side from 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' book being shoved through it, or the zipper gets caught and broken because "I want to do it!" one too many times, the company will replace your crib tent FOR FREE! That's the kind of warranty I wish I had on all baby and toddler products. Hello, Nuby sippy cup company, are you listening?

(I actually love Nuby cups, I just don't like having to replace the silicone straws once a month from my boys using them as teething soothers for their 4-year molars.)

Last night, Tanner's crib tent zipper broke. And it was like the world was coming to an end. Hayden is not so picky about being zipped up, so we did a quick crib switch-a-roo (because pinning Tanner's crib tent with safety pins was NOT "zippered up", as we were told by Tanner at the top of his lungs over and over and over again).

I immediately emailed Tots in Mind and our crib tent replacements should be here by Saturday.

And that's music to my ears.