Curious - how would a single triplet mum cope?

[ParsleyCake]

I just had a thought today while selfishly moaning about the difficulty of parenting a baby. What happens if you are a single mum with newborn triplets? Or even twins? Assuming you don't have a particularly supportive family, does the NHS help? I think you would need a live in nanny, for triplets at least. I literally could only just hold onto the threads of sanity if I were a simgle mum, but there would def be PPD. Twins? Triplets? The thought alone makes me shudder. How do people cope?

I guess you just have to get on with it - in the same way that people 'cope' as best as they can with a partner with dementia, or who is severely disabled. Through work, I hear about family after family who 'cope' with situations in life that would make most of us just collapse, but somehow, they survive because they have to.
Some people are lucky enough to have very close, supportive and able family, others don't, and just have to 'exist' I suppose.

The charity TAMBA would probably be able to advise on any extra help available / benefits /schemes to support.

Local colleges who run Childcare courses could probably assist as part of practical training for their students by helping at least in part on weekdays.

Mentally, and with the nightfeeds too, I havr literally no idea how anyone could get through the first year with triplets and no family/partner support. Without DH i would have cracked just with the one baby.

I just dont think you could cope though. I read a few blogs about families with triplets and you literally can't sleep while caring for them as they never sleep at the same time. Even doctors were advising them that they needed four people around to help (including the mum and dad). If you can't sleep you're physically unable to cope...and the only thing would be to shut the babies in a room and go sleep for two hours about three times a day and that would probably count as neglect/abuse?

Parents of multiples, amd single parents, have my utmost respect.

I have no idea. I do remember wanting to punch a mother of triplets when DS1 was a few weeks old and I was barely coping

I saw her in a kids clothes shop and I said something inane like "that must be hard work" and she said "not really, you just have to get in a routine"

In hindsight, her DC's looked the same age as Ds1 but as triplets, I suppose they might have been older than him so she'd had more practice, but even so....

Not relevant at all, but that's my only experience of triplets

A routine would be absoloutley essential. No feeding on demand - scheduled feeds immediatley after one another then remake bottles ready for the next feed, burp and bum change then sleep for two hours til ypu do it all again.

Electric baby swings for daytime sleep.

Coffee.

Very good friends who will bring you meals for the freezer

Twins here, and the 'father' left during pregnancy so I was lone parent all the way through not the same as having a partner at all in any way. I coped because I had to, despite DD only sleeping 40 mins max for the first 9 months. The electric baby swing was the best thing ever!

My mantra was 'it could be worse, it could be triplets'.

And no, no help from anywhere. Did ask for help from Homestart after a few months and a useless woman came round for an hour and moaned about her life and never heard anything from them again. Even Child Benefit is set up for singletons, get reduced for child 2 - I do wonder which child is supposed to be the cheaper one?

Rudy. Having a partner who is out of the house 12 hours a day isn't like being a single parent.

I can't even imagine it. Someone I knew at uni, her dad remarried and had triplets with his new partner and she said whenever she babysat it was just relentless. Especially when they started being mobile - she said you'd usually know where two were, but then spend all your time trying to find the third.

On a tangent slightly but did anyone see that programme this week about development in the womb? There was s couple who had naturally conceived identical quadruplets. Now that is a terrifying prospect.

You can cope with no or very little sleep, and a lot of parents of disabled children do. It's hard to imagine but you really do just cope

I'm not in the UK so I have no idea what sort of help would be available there, but my mum is a parenting support social worker, and she once worked with a single mom who had triplets. She was really young too, like 19 or 20, and I don't think she lived with her parents. She managed. I don't know how, but she did. (Obviously, I don't know anything but the bare details.)

I've got twins- at least I had enough boobs! Was really hard work, I discovered that you don't die on 45 minutes sleep in a 24 hour period. I didn't sleep more than a two hour stretch for 18 months (they were breastfed on demand). They are lovely now that they're older!!!

The triplet mum I knew barely left the house for 18 months. Unplanned pregnancy, 1 bedroom flat- doesn't bear thinking about. Even carrying three car seats is impossible so do you leave one and take two out to the car/into the doctors etc? Then go back for the third?

My ex left when I was pregnant and I remember going to the scan and just praying that there was only 1 baby, thinking I can do this so long as it's not twins. I used to be a nanny specialising in multiple births and behavioural problems, but having ds with no support and little sleep (he woke every 90mins/ 2 hours until he was 2) damn nearly killed me. Thats not an exaggeration, I really went into survival mode and barely left the house for 18 months. I shudder when I think back on it. I have complete respect for anyone with multiples!

I had twins as a single parent. I was lucky as my older ds was seven, so it was physically possible but very tough. I'd been evicted from a private let at the beginning of the pg and had to move. My car died so everywhere on foot, and the babies came during the January of a very cold winter. That said, they were the light of my life in some very dark days, I co-slept and managed to bf in my sleep, which made a huge difference. I often felt grateful it was twins, and felt 'special' which I think helps.

There was one memorable moment when they were toddlers, and both started crying as they'd fallen over. No problem, until simultaneously older ds slipped and banged his head. When all three, at opposite ends of a room are howling with equal might, I broke slightly, and got the hysterical giggles that dissolved into tears. Nobody was impressed. I had to ignore the toddlers and comfort the elder one first cos it felt like his need was greater. The other two made their way to me and we had a big crying pile.

Sorry Rudy, but having a partner who works long hours and is only around at the weekends is nothing like being a single parent. You've got another adult in the household who is bringing in money, and you've got help at the weekend. I'm a single parent to twins and (although I have support from family), I've never had one night away from them, never have a lie in, the only time I get away from them is when I go to work. I wouldn't change it for the world, and there are many, many positive things about it, but it can't be compared to having a partner who works long hours.

As for how you cope when they're babies, you just do. You have to accept very early on that the experience is nothing like that of your friends who have partners and one baby. In terms of practical help, I think I probably could have had someone from Home Start come for a couple of hours a week, but I didn't feel that it would have really helped.

Flossie how would you even fit 3 car seats in the car?! Gosh. Everything must just be so difficult.

We had a client at work actually who was taking calls from us during the day while on her own with toddler triplets. No clue how she did it.

You do 'just manage' in awful circumstances that people cannot imagine. I'm not saying it's a good thing though!

I know a women who has x2 sets of twins within a year. So 4 the same age at one point. She isn't a single parent and children now 5, but when youngest twins were born her army husband was only allowed 2 weeks home and then was back in Afghanistan for 6 months. So 2 week old twins, and 11 month old twins.

She coped fine. However she says what probably helped was she was already used to twin routines from elder ones. And all 4 always slept well. She had them all in a routine and always woke the other twin when one woke so they were in sink. Ie if newborn twin woke at midnight, she woke the other and tandem fed and back to sleep. If one of the elder ones woke at 7am she woke the other so they would both be ready around the same time to nap etc.
She did everything like feeding and bathing and sleeping in conveyer type style. So all babies on bathroom floor naked wrapped in towel, baby in, washed, baby out, next one!

She said co sleeping was what worked best. She had both newborns sharing her bed, and elder babies shared a cot bed in her room also. She brought elder ones to her bed also if they wanted so could have 5 in the bed by morning!

She also said slings saved her. As could put baby twins in a warp together when tiny and be hands free to make lunch for herself and older babies.

Luckily she also had family and friends who would help. Not so much daily as most also working/ not super close to home, but for example I would go around ( with my own baby to add to mix), and just let her take a bath an hour alone whilst I kept an eye on them all, and her parents would go over and help cook

I have twins, plus an older one. Not a single parent. And yes can absolutely see how tough it would be. But I had this thing/revelation with my twins that I simply didn't have as a mum of a singleton (I have to add in I was also physically disabled and in constant pain at that point): I can only do my best, and my best is good enough. All guilt went out the window with my twins - I felt like supermum just for having them. If one had to cry whilst I dealt with the other - I didn't beat myself up, it was just the way it was. I also would let them cry in their cots for 10 minutes whilst I had a shower - I would never do that with firstborn, but with the twins I felt no guilt whatsoever. And by heck I was regimented about routines so they DID sleep at the same time. And if one woke in the night for a feed, the other was woken and fed too. And Firstborn's needs had to be met first. You just have to have different coping strategies. Now they are nearly 6 are they harmed by that early parenting experience? No I don't think so! They were showered in love, and nurtured and cared for to the very best of my ability. They are happy, content delightful children now and a strong unit with their brother. So I presume, although I don't actually know, that although it would be tough you just HAVE to come up with ways to make it work. At the end of the day there's not really a choice in the matter.

I recall reading an article once that said that single mums with twins coped the best compared to other parental set ups on the basis that they have no choice so just deal with the situation.

I've just had my first, a single child. She is very unsettled in the evening and often feeds almost non stop from 6-9 so my DP makes dinner every night. I could take her off my nipple and make dinner but dint because I know my DP will do it. If I was single I'd have no choice. Since having a baby im rather in awe of single mums

I've got twins, a great DH and loads of family help. The first year was still bloody difficult. How on earth you would cope with triplets or being a single parent I have no idea, I wouldn't have done.