How Much???

Sometimes it feels like our lives revolve around eating, sleeping and pooping! At the moment, the most asked questions are: “How much do they eat?” “How many diapers do you go through?” and “How much sleep are you getting?”

Well, eating and diapers seem to go hand in hand. On average we go through 24 diapers a day, give or take a few. I am pretty close to being able to change a diaper one handed, and have definitely done it in my sleep more than a few times! I make a little more than one container of formula a day. Once a day each baby gets 1ml of vitamins with iron and ¼ tsp. of a probiotic added to a bottle. We just finished the last round of antibiotics (knock on wood), but they also took that once a day. Here is a look at what they consume in an average day:
In a week we use around 168 diapers and 8 cans of formula. Thinking about those numbers, here is what a week looks like :)

Crazy, isn’t it??? I know we would go through that much if we had three kids individually, but it sometimes shocks me when I consider the daily amount at one time. I usually buy diapers in bulk from Sam’s or order them online. I had great coupons recently that I could combine so I bought the individual packaged instead.

The babies were completely fed breastmilk for close to the first four months. I lost 3-4 weeks worth of pumped milk in a freezer mishap. (We will not go there or I may start bawling again!) It became very difficult to care for the babies and pump as often as I needed. I slowly weaned my pumping as I increased their formula over a few weeks. We now use the specific formula Neosure due to the babies being preemies.

Now for sleep… That takes a little more explaining. Since my last post about their sleep schedules, we have made great gains. I have tried very hard to stick with the eat/awake/sleep schedule. A few weeks ago we took out the 10:30 feeding. The babies were then sleeping two longer stretches of time and waking up once around 3:00am. That lasted about a week as they started to stretch towards the morning. They have gone several nights sleeping eleven hours straight. It really depends on what their formula intake was for the day. So, we are working on in-taking more formula during the day in order to stretch them at night (without pushing it too far). I am confident (hoping!) we will be consistently sleeping through the night soon. If only I went to bed when they did, I would be so well rested. The house would be a mess, nothing would get done… but, so well rested :) I am also looking forward to consistent full nights of sleep because that is less diapers that we will go through!

Quin is doing a nice job with potty training. I would give her about 90%. She will go a day without wetting, and then have a few accidents the next day. I am just happy she is making progress! Less diapers/pull ups during the day will be a huge help for us!

PS – No nasty comments about how many diapers we are putting in the landfill! I already feel guilty:) When I found out I was pregnant, I was planning on using washable/cloth diapers. It was an overwhelming thought for me when I found out that we were having triplets. As they get older, there is always time to get away from disposable diapers.