My wife and I are both nurses with a fair whack of experience in healthcare and are blessed with 14m/o trippies (2 boys, 1 girl). Things have been going fairly well for a year however, this week I’ve come home from work with flu (yes, I had my vaccination). Currently I’m quarantined in my bedroom with no baby contact for at least 4 days so I thought I might share some of my experiences and comments for the day when someone else might have the same problem.
1) Don’t assume that this won’t happen to you. It’s fairly easy to have plans for all eventualities. Having a parent down with triplets is going to be a major drag for the upright parent considering they’re now outnumbered 3-to-1 and have a poorly spouse to care for too. It’s not too complicated to ensure that you have a ready stock of disinfectant wipes, face masks and gloves. But you also need to consider, do you have two sleeping areas for parents, unfortunately, this might result in the upright parent sleeping on the floor in another room. And ideally, what do you do about bathrooming if you only have one bathroom. How much risk are you willing to take to ensure that you don’t spread a virus between all of your babies.
2) No matter how amazing the upright parent is, you need to consider, what help is genuinely available – I don’t mean the friends that say they’ll “be there whenever you need me hon”. I mean the family who actually will. As we found yesterday (more in a moment), you need to order your contacts by reliability and trustworthiness, not by how often they pop by on a whim.
3) Do you have your “Hospital GO bag ready”? I put together a GO bag for hospital after having to take one of the trippies for emergency surgery in Bristol and my wife and I massively overcompensating with the packing. I had to navigate the hills of Bristol with a screaming baby and a pram filled with bottles, snacks, books and tat. Almost all of which was totally unused. Now, I’m prepared for any overnight stay with a simple carrier bag containing pants and a t-shirt for me, 2 generic babygrows and vests for whichever trippie I might be with, a bottle of formula, a phone charger, 4 nappies, the last of a pack of wipes and a spare carrier bag for laundry. Coupled with a phone, a wallet and what I’m wearing I’m good to go in 20 seconds.
4) While my wife and I were prepared for hospital and prepared for quarantine. We never seriously considered both happening simultaneously. So when our our little girl required a paramedic yesterday (resp rate of 60 + temp) and a trip to A&E my wife immediately had to ring around our contacts looking for a sitter for the boys. My coming downstairs to help was not an option. Fortunately, after being reminded of point 2 we found someone who could help until my wifes mother got home from work. We should have planned this much better, the risk of a baby getting sick while a parent I sick is much higher and while I can self-medicate and am at a relatively lower risk the children are much more likely to need a hospital visit.
5) Lying here in my bed I’m not totally useless. Between regular snoozes there’s a handful of things I can do. I can keep hydrated and on top of my meds (H has enough to do), I can order groceries, I can do the banking, keep up with my reading. It’s not practical but it’s something and it takes the burden off of H. I can also do my part to make sure that the surfaces I touch are clean and wiped down after use.
6) I’ve not help my babies for 2 days now and I have at least 2 more to go. I can only see them when they are asleep so they don’t clamour for me and to do that I need to be wearing a mask. I’m fully invested in keeping them safe from harm but it takes a lot of emotional strength to only see your babies for a few seconds at night after they've gone to sleep.
I’d love to hear any advice from other people who have been through the same.
1) Don’t assume that this won’t happen to you. It’s fairly easy to have plans for all eventualities. Having a parent down with triplets is going to be a major drag for the upright parent considering they’re now outnumbered 3-to-1 and have a poorly spouse to care for too. It’s not too complicated to ensure that you have a ready stock of disinfectant wipes, face masks and gloves. But you also need to consider, do you have two sleeping areas for parents, unfortunately, this might result in the upright parent sleeping on the floor in another room. And ideally, what do you do about bathrooming if you only have one bathroom. How much risk are you willing to take to ensure that you don’t spread a virus between all of your babies.
2) No matter how amazing the upright parent is, you need to consider, what help is genuinely available – I don’t mean the friends that say they’ll “be there whenever you need me hon”. I mean the family who actually will. As we found yesterday (more in a moment), you need to order your contacts by reliability and trustworthiness, not by how often they pop by on a whim.
3) Do you have your “Hospital GO bag ready”? I put together a GO bag for hospital after having to take one of the trippies for emergency surgery in Bristol and my wife and I massively overcompensating with the packing. I had to navigate the hills of Bristol with a screaming baby and a pram filled with bottles, snacks, books and tat. Almost all of which was totally unused. Now, I’m prepared for any overnight stay with a simple carrier bag containing pants and a t-shirt for me, 2 generic babygrows and vests for whichever trippie I might be with, a bottle of formula, a phone charger, 4 nappies, the last of a pack of wipes and a spare carrier bag for laundry. Coupled with a phone, a wallet and what I’m wearing I’m good to go in 20 seconds.
4) While my wife and I were prepared for hospital and prepared for quarantine. We never seriously considered both happening simultaneously. So when our our little girl required a paramedic yesterday (resp rate of 60 + temp) and a trip to A&E my wife immediately had to ring around our contacts looking for a sitter for the boys. My coming downstairs to help was not an option. Fortunately, after being reminded of point 2 we found someone who could help until my wifes mother got home from work. We should have planned this much better, the risk of a baby getting sick while a parent I sick is much higher and while I can self-medicate and am at a relatively lower risk the children are much more likely to need a hospital visit.
5) Lying here in my bed I’m not totally useless. Between regular snoozes there’s a handful of things I can do. I can keep hydrated and on top of my meds (H has enough to do), I can order groceries, I can do the banking, keep up with my reading. It’s not practical but it’s something and it takes the burden off of H. I can also do my part to make sure that the surfaces I touch are clean and wiped down after use.
6) I’ve not help my babies for 2 days now and I have at least 2 more to go. I can only see them when they are asleep so they don’t clamour for me and to do that I need to be wearing a mask. I’m fully invested in keeping them safe from harm but it takes a lot of emotional strength to only see your babies for a few seconds at night after they've gone to sleep.
I’d love to hear any advice from other people who have been through the same.
she’s a rock star!