A Day in the Life: 12 Months

In preparation for our big trip to the Cayman's and leaving the boys for our first extended period of time, I have been prepping a binder for Sue that's full of information about the boys. I'm sure it's information overload, but I am admittedly anxious about leaving them for a week and want to be sure that I have all the bases covered in case something happens while we're away. I've pretty much wrote out my newest "Day in the Life" post to include in the binder so I figured I'd go ahead and copy/paste it here to save me from having to re-write it in the next couple weeks. So, here's a look at what life is like for us at 12 months old:

7:30-8:30 AM: the boys will wake up on their own any time between 7:30 and 8:00 AM. They are pretty quiet and content to hang out in their cribs for a bit as they first wake up so you don’t need to rush in there. When we do go in, they all need diaper changes and into their outfits for the day. If we plan to take them out and about, we put them in “real” outfits (rompers, or shorts and t-shirts or onesies); otherwise, we typically just put them in a clean onesie and no pants. 

8:30-9:30 AM: Breakfast time. They eat all meals at their triplet table now. They get milk with all meals now- some days they are more enthusiastic about drinking it than others. We typically put Cooper in the middle seat because he has had a tendency lately to throw food on the floor. He still does it from the middle seat, but not with the same enthusiasm and determination that he does from a side seat! Be sure to give Cooper 1 ML of his Ranitidine meds before breakfast.

9:30-10:30 AM: Play time. We take them on a walk around the neighborhood if it’s not too hot. If we do walk, we rotate the baby up who gets to sit up top in the stroller and usually bring some water along for them to have. If the weather doesn't permit for walking, they are perfectly good playing upstairs for a bit. When we are upstairs with them, they can roam the bonus room freely and will generally play well together. They are not allowed to play on or near the entertainment center (though they will surely try!). We have toys strategically placed to try and block their access but they will still squirm through- they’ll need to by physically moved away from the TV. Often.

They are also drawn to the window, so we will open the shades about halfway to keep them safe from any choking hazards. A current favorite activity is to bang objects against the window. 

We don’t really keep them in the baby jail for extended periods of time any more as the space is too small for them to have a lot of roaming room. We do keep them in the baby jail area if we have to leave the room to grab something. And we also have baby gates set up now that we leave closed at all times (especially the one at the bonus room doorway). We’re trying to get into the habit of always keeping the one at the top of the stairs shut, too. Just in case!

10:30-11:00 AM: Snack time. Back to their table for morning snacks. We offer them a sippy cup of water with their snacks, then they head back upstairs for naptime. They may fuss a little bit when we put them down, but that’s OK…they typically quiet down really quickly. 

11:00 AM-1:00/2:00 PM: Nap time. The boys usually will nap for at least a couple hours in the morning, if not longer. We typically clean up the kitchen and get their lunch prepped during their morning nap.

1:00-2:00 PM: Lunch time. Same as morning routine- except a bit messier as we usually feed them a combo of finger foods and spoon fed foods. 

2:00-3:30/4:00 PM: Play time back upstairs. Depending on how late their morning nap lasted there may be time to give them a quick afternoon snack before putting them down again. But if they took a long morning nap there is often not enough time, and that’s OK. They usually go down for their afternoon nap between 3:30 and 4:00 PM.

4:00-5:00PM: Afternoon nap. This nap is not normally longer than an hour or so. If they wake up on the earlier side we give them a snack right when they wake up…but if it’s closer to 6:30 we skip it all-together. They don’t always have 2 snacks in a day so we don’t stress if we don’t get both in! We only have one set of the EZPZ mats so they’ll need to be washed so they’re ready to go for dinner time.

5:00-6:30: Play time and dinner prep. We generally play with them upstairs until about 5:30 or 6:00 then bring them all down to the kitchen and let them play in the baby jail area while we prep dinner.

6:30-7:00/7:30 PM: Dinner time. We typically let them have all finger foods at dinner time and try to time it so we are eating dinner at the same time they are. I usually keep some extra food diced up and ready for them as backup in case they power through what’s on their plates (Griffin and Cooper!) They will often try to steal food off each other’s plates. I don’t know what is so tempting about the other plate when they have the exact same thing on their own… but alas we deal with that every night. We've noticed lately that they haven't been as excited about eating as they used to be. Sometimes we have to grab a fork or spoon and feed them off their plates that way. Will, especially, is a slow eater but gets very excited about trying to feed himself with a fork! After dinner Cooper gets another 1 ML dose of his ranitidine medication.

If there is time to clean up the kitchen after dinner we will; often Will and I will tag team and split up the work. One will work on dishes while the other cleans up the baby area- clorox wiping the triplet table and sweeping and mopping under the table every night. It's always a good day when the dishwasher is nearly full and we can justify throwing the EZPZ mats in there and starting it as opposed to hand-washing everything.

7:00-8:00 PM: Bedtime routine. We take them back upstairs and let them hang out either in a crib or in the upstairs baby jail while we get each one ready for bed. If it’s bath night, we bathe each one individually- it doesn’t matter who you start with.  Bath time takes about 45 minutes start to finish to get all three bathed and into PJs. All 3 boys get lotion and fresh jammies on bath night. Then we let them play upstairs for a bit before bed.

We try to have them down for the night between 8:00 and 8:15. Before bed, we’ll read books while they brush their teeth. I put all 3 in the baby jail and let them brush their teeth in there while Will reads the 3 bedtime books to them. We always read “Goodnight Pookie” last. I sit in the baby jail with the boys to be sure that they don’t steal each other’s toothbrushes, stand up and walk around with them, or use them as weapons against each other. J Once we’re done with books we take their toothbrushes away and then put them into their cribs, one by one. I let the first baby who gets taken to bed “help” me turn on the tranquil turtle before I put him down. They may fuss for a couple minutes (Will especially) when you first put them down, but they usually fall asleep pretty quickly.