AMY TAYLOR
Mother of Triplets and Milwaukee Morning Radio Show Host on 94.5 WKTI
Q:How old are the triplets? What are their names?
A:They are 12 months old, which is 10 months corrected. Their names are Tess, Jillian, and Chloe.
Q:Do you still get a lot of help with them, or do you find that people are terrified of them?
A: I have to be quite honest with you, we have 2 au pars that we hired to help us. Our very close friends rallied around us at the beginning to help but I think people thought oh we have help so they don’t need more help. We didn’t get any help from the community and the fact is there’s not enough help in the world when you have triplets. I mean, you can always use more help. You can use an army. That was kind of hard. We had more people we brought into the home and not like an organized church effort or something like that.
Q: Do you get to spend alone time with each one?
A: I really make a big effort every day to take each of the girls either to my room, which has a nice sitting area in it or just somewhere separate in the house to just read a book with them alone or rock and hold them or talk to them. I really make a big effort to have alone time with each daughter even if it just means somebody else is in the room with them and I just go to another part of the house. In the summer, it was a lot of walks. I would take each girl for a walk by herself every day.
Q: Are they all pretty much on the same schedule?
A: They are because it’s like the military at my house. We play the music and the girls go to sleep and that is like their cue for a naptime and I was really strict about imposing naptimes and had learned from other moms with multiples that your life will be a lot happier and you’ll be a much more fulfilled individual if everybody takes a nap at the same time.
Q: Did you do any special organizing before they were born?
A: Yeah, I had little bins all labeled. I didn’t do it before they were born because I was on bed rest and I was in the hospital so I didn’t have a tremendous ability to handle stuff like that. They were in the NICU for 2 months so I had time with my girlfriends to try to set up the nursery and then I realized that with them on the medications that they were on because they were premature, that I would need assistance so I had little bins and I got a label machine and I just started labeling everything. The label thing was my pretend attempt to have control over my world. That really helped and then I got one of those dry erase boards and I wrote down their schedules and the amount of volume they were taking in of their formula and that kind of stuff. I found that to be really helpful. I also labeled all the shelves with the milk so that whoever was there helping or taking care of them would have instant ability to recognize what belonged to whom.
Q: What’s been the most helpful piece of baby gear?
A: I would say the bouncy seat with the toys that hang over it and also the Gymanee mat in early babyhood like when they’re newborns are wonderful. Those 2 things were very helpful. I couldn’t live without the baby entertainment that those provide.
Q: Have you lost all of your baby weight?
A: [Laughs] That’s hilarious. You’re kidding, right? Is that the joke part of the interview? When does the serious part of the interview start? I put on an incredible amount of weight. I put on 75 pounds and I’ve got half of that off so I’ve got the rest to go.
Q: What is the best piece of advice that you could give to parents who are expecting tripletsA: I would think it would have to be to be prepared for what prematurity is because in triplets especially, it is 90-95% prematurity and so I think what I didn’t understand was that and the fact that the baby was only going to drink an ounce of formula and was going to wake up an hour later and need another ounce of formula. That makes it incredibly difficult to put anybody on a schedule. I think it’s also important to know about the feeding issues you’re going to have, like the child may not even want to suck. If you choose to breastfeed, suckling is going to be very hard for a premature infant so maybe successful breastfeeding can be very difficult. This is all tied together by my most important piece of advice for people who have triplets who are going to be born premature, is to get help overnight. Line up somebody or something to help you overnight because in the beginning months, if you are putting in 24-hour days, you start to act like a crazy person. [Laughs] I really think that having that lined up and knowing that you are just one human being and as the mom you just can’t take care of 3 infants that have these tremendous needs and that are probably going home on monitors and you should not have that kind of expectation of yourself that you can do it. I spent a lot of time feeling inadequate and wanting to do everything. It is the most natural thing in the world for a person to do but I was so exhausted and short-tempered. You really just have to accept the knowledge that you are going to need help and you should accept the help. If people are not coming forth to help, find a way to go get help. I have friends who had triplets that joined a church so that they would have help and they make no bones about it. I mean, they are religious people but would they have joined that church without having triplets? No. Did they need the help and are they grateful for it? Yes. So that’s it. Get help, NOW. Before it’s too late.
Interviewed by Jennifer. Please visit www.wkti.com