When you first come home, days and nights blur into one. You and your family will come up with what works best for you, to try and cope with the sleep deprivation and constant stream of feeds and nappies. It's important to remember that this period is very short and even though it's very demanding, it does come to an end. Working together, accepting and asking for help is vitally important in these early days. It's common for triplet and quad families to sleep downstairs whilst caring for the babies through the night and then take it in shifts to sleep away from the babies to get some proper sleep.

Some of our triplet parents give these top tips...

• "Keep a firm routine and have one person do the bedtime feed and a different person do the early morning feed to maximise sleep."
• "Do it in Shifts- My husband and I cared for the children at different parts of the day, very rarely together so we would each get a few hours uninterrupted sleep a day."
• "At night one of us slept on a single bed in the boys' room whilst the other slept in our bedroom."
• "Tomorrow’s another day-so if you've had a bad day with your routine etc, don’t worry- you can make a fresh start tomorrow."
• "Babies are hard work. Three babies are really hard work! Splitting the night shift with your partner so that you both get some uninterrupted sleep can help. Put earplugs in during your sleep shift and sleep; trust your partner to cope."

As you settle into life at home, you'll come up with what works best for you and your family. It's important to remember that these routines will change as you get to know your babies and start to feel more confident with them. Make sure you and your partner are open and honest about how you're feeling. It maybe that at the start you don’t feel happy doing a feed alone and this is ok, as the babies get bigger, they change, and your confidence will grow.

• "Work together and support each other. Regardless of how tired and irritable you get."
• "Talk to each other and acknowledge each other's fears and feelings. Do not ignore any issues between you. Seek help through Relate or other counselling early."
• "I didn't need to be so obsessed once we brought them home to get them into a sleeping routine. Young babies need time before a routine can work. Wished I felt more relaxed about spending more time simply hugging them - but I didn't want to interrupt the routine I was trying to instil ... It's tricky with the whole routine thing, as obviously it's important for triplets, but the focus of the routine at the beginning is really more on the feeding. I just assumed that I needed to do the same with sleeping. But a sleeping routine didn't really start to work until they were around four months old."
• "Be prepared for change and ensure you give each other unconditional support and ignore the tired feelings. Every day is a new day."

If you are parenting alone, make sure you accept as much support from friends and family as you can. We have a great one parent Facebook group which you might be interested in joining which also provides great support from people who have experienced similar things.