(Their dad took this shot an hour or so after they were born.)

As a mom of triplets I get asked a lot of questions wherever I go. One of the most common is whether or not I ever get any sleep.

Short answer: My girls sleep great.

Long answer: It took a lot of work to get where I am today.

How did I do it?

My girls were born just hours shy of 36 weeks at my scheduled C-section. While the girls all had excellent weights, they still left the hospital at under five pounds each. Since they were so close to term, their coming home came just 6 days after their birth. Which meant not only was I coming home with three tiny newborns, but I was recovering from major surgery and 12 weeks of bed rest.

I will not lie…the first few nights were the hardest of my life.  I already had two older kids, so I wasn’t a newbie in the sleep department!

I did not get a minute of sleep the first night. I was so overwhelmed and confused as to how in the world I would actually manage to get three babies to sleep at one time. Not an easy task.

Did I mention I didn’t get any sleep?

But I’m one of those people who can’t function without sleep, so I had to change things. I had a daughter in 1st grade and a 3-year old son who needed my help every day.  I couldn’t sleep during the day,  so I had to sleep at night and fast!

Thankfully my husband was a willing participant in my endeavor to get some sleep.  Given their premature state,  we set the alarm to wake them up every three hours (if they didn’t wake up on their own) and placed them in their own cribs out of our room. I could still hear them but I didn’t wake up with every grunt. When the alarm sounded or one woke on her own, we woke them all and then fed them all together. When feeding time was over, we swaddled them all and placed them back in their beds. It didn’t take long before we no longer needed the alarm, and soon the girls were sleeping at longer intervals.

In an attempt to help them distinguish from day and night, we set up a routine before bed very early on. Every night we gave each girl a bath.

That’s right, every night times three.

We bathed them, dressed them in pajamas and gave them one last feeding before swaddling them and placing them in bed. Believe it or not, it took my tiny 5-pounders just nine weeks to sleep through the night.  With some routine and consistency,  they’ve been sleeping through the night ever since!

And so have I!

(Stay tuned for a follow-up article with toddler-napping tips for multiples mommies.)

Dorinda Nelson blogs about her life with five kids including triplets at 2 Kids plus Trips! Her girls still sleep 12 hours through the night and 3 hour naps during the day, yet their mommy is more exhausted then ever!