The Yankowski Triplets

Let me preface this post by saying I am not a nurse, a certified lactation consultant, or any kind of titled professional. I am just a mom who has breastfed five children with different journeys and had the opportunity to learn a lot along the way. Now let's get down to business. I wrote a blog post when we first started nursing, and sometimes I like to look back at that think wow! We have come so far, and learned so much!! I get messages often asking me for advice, and I think the best way to help everyone is with a blog post! I hope to cover some commonly asked questions by telling our story right to weaning. I also have the pleasure of sharing a great product that I think will truly help many women who need a boost. It all started with our first latch. Yep, that is me, right after delivery. I told the lactation consultant, let's do two! I knew that tandem feeding would be inevitable for my sanity, and I was eager to give it a go! By that point each baby had gotten so...

I'm your stereotypical "helicopter parent". My children are always in my sight. In fact, I can count on one hand how many times my children have spent the night elsewhere and I wouldn't even need the whole hand. I am so paranoid to let them go anywhere and be out of my care that I just don't do it unless it's absolutely necessary. Well, three days ago it became necessary. My husband and I needed to head to Dallas. Okay, we didn't *need* to head to Dallas but me coming along was important. I just didn't even realize how important it was until our trip was coming to a close.  Finding childcare for five children including triplets was agonizing. My mother in law lives 3 hours away and my kids have never stayed there without me. And most of the people in our lives have other commitments in life they can't just drop to watch our kids, with the exception of my grandmother who needed a break just as much as we did. Needless to say I was stressing ...

The first few weeks of having the triplets home, I was often asked 'How are you doing?' I am pretty sure everyone expected me to be on the verge of an emotional breakdown, and start crying in front of them and explain how overwhelmed and tired I was. Was I tired? Yes. Was I overwhelmed? Yes. Was I on the verge of an emotional breakdown? No. I just smiled, told them we were doing great and I was managing just fine. I had this whole triplet mom thing down. Deep down, I wanted to tell them that God picked the wrong person to have triplets. I was tired and irritable. Yet despite my shortcomings, I was so convinced I had it all down. In fact, I thought it would be a good idea to open up some mini sessions for my photography. Realistically, I didn't have time in my day to shower or linger in the restroom, let alone tackle something else aside from my 5 children. But I'm super woman right? Let me tell you about having three newborn babies. At first, when you bring ...

I can't believe the babies are 8 weeks old! I've really been a slacker with updates, but let me tell you, three babies is a lot of work! (No, really? Ha!) I will be brutally honest, they are truly more work than I think I realized. But, I am here to update! The babies are currently 8 weeks old, or 3 weeks adjusted. This means, they are 3 weeks from their due date had they been born full term and not prematurely. It really doesn't mean a whole lot, especially since ours weren't *that* early, but it means a bit in terms of their development and weight gain. They will likely develop along their adjusted age, but then again all babies develop differently anyway, so it doesn't even matter. Currently Addisyn weighs 7 pounds, 8 ounces. Impressive for a 4 pounder, eh? Mister Bentley also weighs 7 pounds, 8 ounces. And our little Connor man is 7 pounds 5 ounces. Our little peanut has caught up to the boys and surpassed! She needs to keep up so she doesn't get bea...

When I was pregnant, I remember my husband telling me that another triplet dad said something like 60% of marriages with triplets+ end in divorce. I laughed a little and told him it couldn't be that bad, and that had to be a false percent. Then we had the babies. One night while all three cried and screamed while I got bottles ready as quickly as I could, he said to me, "I see why those marriages ended in divorce. The dad probably just wanted a little sleep away from all those kids." Half asleep, I smiled a little but I really just wanted to trip him as he walked away. I'm glad my husband has a sense of humor, and that in my more clear state of mind I can't help but laugh at that comment. We were still in the hospital, and I think looking back that makes it even a little more entertaining because he really could just go home and sleep in our own bed with no crying babies. The reason our marriage won't end in divorce is because he didn't. Except when ...

**Warning, Blog Contains Breastfeeding Pictures. Proceed at own risk ;) Pumping suck. There, I said it. I knew I would have to do some pumping, but I didn't think I would be doing this much. It makes me feel bad for cows, really. And not only does pumping suck, but so do bottles, and the mountain of them I seemed to be buried by every single day. I call this my bag of tricks ;) So I somehow got stuck in this downward spiral, and while my birth was about as close to perfect as I could have envisioned, our breastfeeding journey has not been. I know it's unrealistic to have this perfect image in your head and it actually happen, but we are getting there... it just didn't happen right away. I had lovely babies with great latches from the beginning. Yes, sometimes we had to fix a shallow latch, but they were preemies. And for them being early, we were all amazed they wanted to latch and they wanted to breastfeed, despite their sleepiness.   Sometimes, y...

We were really lucky to have such healthy babies. All three were able to room in with me immediately, and all three took to breastfeeding like little rock stars. Believe it or not, I had a doula. Unfortunately, because of space constraints, she wasn't able to come into the OR. That, and I told her to hang out until we got closer to delivery and then suddenly they were rolling me in to push. It all happened so fast she didn't have time to get there. But, she was waiting for us when we got back to our room. She helped get the babies latched for the first time, and took some pictures for us. Seriously, if you're expecting and haven't considered a doula, get one. I had a wonderful doula when I had Charlotte, and knew with the triplets I wanted one again. She offered so much input while we were preparing for delivery, it was nice to have another birth junkie to bounce things off of and get a second opinion that wasn't emotionally involved. Thankfully visitors were ...