This is the first installment in an awesome series that's I'm going to call, "How do they do it?" We have had so many people ask how we do the basics with quadruplets like bathing, feeding, bedtime, etc. Lots of blogs have tutorials, so in similar fashion, here is our Bathing Quadruplets FAST Tutorial!
You know, in case you ever find yourself completely outnumbered by babies on a regular basis. :)
First of all, figure out a way to corral all of the kids. Before they started crawling, we could just throw a bunch of blankets down on the floor of our room for them to lie on. Now that they are mobile, we use the
Superyard XT Gate to keep them contained. Much easier than pulling them out of the closet, or dragging them back out from under our bed. Both are kind of dusty and someday I need to get around to cleaning them.
Throw some blankets down inside the play yard along with a few toys to keep them entertained.
Line up all of their clothes along the edge of the bed. I always put them in birth order to make it easy to keep track of who wears what.
Add the correct size diaper on top of the clothes. Our kids wear different sizes and we don't want to accidentally put too small of a diaper on a kid. Leaks are no good if they've just had a bath (okay, are leaks ever good??)
And then their towel and washcloth go on top. So now each kid has their stack in the order in which they will use the items: wash cloth in bath tub, towel dry off, diaper on, then socks, and finally clothes. No digging around while you have a bare butt crawling away from you.
This is also the point where I realized that I didn't have the correct setting on the camera flash. :)
Set up a diaper changing/lotioning station. Notice that this station is right next to their clothes. Keep it simple!
Put some water in your tub with some toys. I figured out that while squirty water toys are fun, they get very slippery. The kids are happier if the toys have rings that they can hold onto. Bath time goes quicker if you aren't chasing toys AND trying to wash kids.
Strip the kids and put them in the play yard.
This is the part where tag-teaming really comes in handy! One person strips off diapers, brings them to the tub, and then dries them off, lotions them down, and dresses them. The other person sits in the tub and scrubs away. In our case, I wash them and Sean dresses them. Sitting in the tub works best since I can brace them with my legs and scrub them down quickly.
This is what it looks like:
1) Mommy is handed Abby. She starts washing her.
2) Then Daddy dries, diapers, lotions, and dresses Caleb who just finished his bath.
3) Caleb goes back in the play yard.
4) Daddy goes back to the tub to get Abby. Abby goes into the play yard sans diaper for a minute while Daddy strips the diaper off of Elijah. Mommy, meanwhile, has changed out the bath water and is ready when Daddy passes Elijah into the tub.
5) Then Mommy washes Elijah while Daddy dries, diapers, lotions, and dresses Abby.
6) Continue until all babies are clean.
It's also important to take a few minutes to play with them as you go! Hehe! I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure this photo of Ellie is included in her wedding slideshow. :-)
Tip: Make it easy on yourself and put a laundry basket right outside the bedroom door for wet towels as you finish with them. After baths are done, everything is easily carried to the washer.
And this is the finished project! Clean, relaxed, tired babies! They always take great naps after baths!
Elijah
Daddy and Ellie
Caleb and Abby
Sean and I can give our quadruplets baths in 40 minutes by doing it this way. That includes set up, baths, and clean up which is pretty darn fast, in my opinion! We've tried baths in the baby bathtub, sink, with them in the big bathtub and us leaning over the edge, and showering. This is by far the easiest, quickest way to get through all of them.
By the way, this also works for a singleton, just without all of the repeats. :)
This is the first installment in an awesome series that's I'm going to call, "How do they do it?" We have had so many people ask how we do the basics with quadruplets like bathing, feeding, bedtime, etc. Lots of blogs have tutorials, so in similar fashion, here is our Bathing Quadruplets FAST Tutorial!
You know, in case you ever find yourself completely outnumbered by babies on a regular basis. :)
First of all, figure out a way to corral all of the kids. Before they started crawling, we could just throw a bunch of blankets down on the floor of our room for them to lie on. Now that they are mobile, we use the
Superyard XT Gate to keep them contained. Much easier than pulling them out of the closet, or dragging them back out from under our bed. Both are kind of dusty and someday I need to get around to cleaning them.
Throw some blankets down inside the play yard along with a few toys to keep them entertained.
Line up all of their clothes along the edge of the bed. I always put them in birth order to make it easy to keep track of who wears what.
Add the correct size diaper on top of the clothes. Our kids wear different sizes and we don't want to accidentally put too small of a diaper on a kid. Leaks are no good if they've just had a bath (okay, are leaks ever good??)
And then their towel and washcloth go on top. So now each kid has their stack in the order in which they will use the items: wash cloth in bath tub, towel dry off, diaper on, then socks, and finally clothes. No digging around while you have a bare butt crawling away from you.
This is also the point where I realized that I didn't have the correct setting on the camera flash. :)
Set up a diaper changing/lotioning station. Notice that this station is right next to their clothes. Keep it simple!
Put some water in your tub with some toys. I figured out that while squirty water toys are fun, they get very slippery. The kids are happier if the toys have rings that they can hold onto. Bath time goes quicker if you aren't chasing toys AND trying to wash kids.
Strip the kids and put them in the play yard.
This is the part where tag-teaming really comes in handy! One person strips off diapers, brings them to the tub, and then dries them off, lotions them down, and dresses them. The other person sits in the tub and scrubs away. In our case, I wash them and Sean dresses them. Sitting in the tub works best since I can brace them with my legs and scrub them down quickly.
This is what it looks like:
1) Mommy is handed Abby. She starts washing her.
2) Then Daddy dries, diapers, lotions, and dresses Caleb who just finished his bath.
3) Caleb goes back in the play yard.
4) Daddy goes back to the tub to get Abby. Abby goes into the play yard sans diaper for a minute while Daddy strips the diaper off of Elijah. Mommy, meanwhile, has changed out the bath water and is ready when Daddy passes Elijah into the tub.
5) Then Mommy washes Elijah while Daddy dries, diapers, lotions, and dresses Abby.
6) Continue until all babies are clean.
It's also important to take a few minutes to play with them as you go! Hehe! I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure this photo of Ellie is included in her wedding slideshow. :-)
Tip: Make it easy on yourself and put a laundry basket right outside the bedroom door for wet towels as you finish with them. After baths are done, everything is easily carried to the washer.
And this is the finished project! Clean, relaxed, tired babies! They always take great naps after baths!
Elijah
Daddy and Ellie
Caleb and Abby
Sean and I can give our quadruplets baths in 40 minutes by doing it this way. That includes set up, baths, and clean up which is pretty darn fast, in my opinion! We've tried baths in the baby bathtub, sink, with them in the big bathtub and us leaning over the edge, and showering. This is by far the easiest, quickest way to get through all of them.
By the way, this also works for a singleton, just without all of the repeats. :)
