Living with Quadruplets | Parenting Documentary | Real Families

paper was light gold in medieval times i want tobacco sugar [Music] that everything we thought we knew about the world might turn out to be completely wrong [Music] oh look at aston and roman quadruplets are incredibly rare only four sets are born in the uk each year having quads isn't ordinary it feels a bit strange but i've learned to live with it now and it's pretty awesome from the moment they arrive they present their parents with a unique set of challenges [Music] sort of a whirlwind really non-stop i said to matt this morning i said i can't promise i'm not going to kill someone today [Music] we've filmed with four families each with quads of different ages [Applause] [Music] one-year-olds always nappy time all right [Music] do you want to three-year-olds everybody you need a pepperoni six-year-old jess i'm not guessing even mommy gets you muddled up sometimes and ten-year-olds they meet up for the first time ever seeing the babies brought back some quite emotional memories and we see the joys [Music] moments like this have to be cherished don't they and heartaches the health visitor says you're really depressed emily i said no i'm just overwhelmed anyone would be of living with quads it's been enjoyable stressful but won't change [Music] meet the davies quadruplets sophia aston amelia and roman have just celebrated their first birthday [Music] for parents matt and cat it's been an incredible 12 months we decided to try for a baby because it was kind of like the next step that would make everything really nice i've got an eight-year-old callum matt already had eight-year-old faith it was just like the next step it would just make us all come together i suppose discovering she had polycystic ovaries 27 year old cat made the big decision to start taking a drug designed to help with egg release now a side effect of him is twins sometimes you don't really hear triplets often and as the doctor said you know you never have quads a year after starting the drug they were given extraordinary news not only had cat released four eggs but matt had fertilized every one of them but all quadruplet pregnancies are treated as high risk and every day was a worry all quads are born very early we were told that any baby's born before 28 weeks have like a very slim chance of survival any baby's born after 28 weeks have a 95 chance very fortunately for us as we're born at 30 weeks we had the best possible outcome you know we've got four very healthy babies ten weeks after they were born the quads were ready to come home i think that's only time it ever really hit me like today's the day your life's just changed and looking back now it's been a tough 12 months [Music] unfortunately they found a formula for raising quads that plays to both of their strengths matt goes to work i do everything else i'll second that matt and cat live in stockport and true to form cats up earliest making the first of 16 bottles for the day we got up at seven o'clock this morning the babies have been up all night but i'm out of bed at seven o'clock it was just awful last night you don't normally wake each other up but last night they were just in competition with each other over who could get the most attention i said to matt this morning i said um i can't promise i'm not going to kill someone today matt is a manager of a car dealership and leaves the house at 8 15 six days a week hello i do the feeding and stuff i'm not really the knackers and stuff not really [Laughter] about three weeks ago i look at the fell out of it with matt off to work it's time for cat to get down to business this is like my office this is my this is my job and i feel guilty for thinking that sometimes but that's what it is over the next eight hours cat's duties will include oh amelia this is not what girls do changing 16 nappies i probably change more nappies in one nappy change session but most people change in a whole day [Music] cooking 12 meals okay okay never really had much food in the fridge because it would go off before we actually eat it and now i've never put so much in my life nipping out to do the weekly shop spend about 150 pounds a week easy on shopping [Music] cheese spread butter we'll get five minutes out of that taking in a breath of fresh air put that down because i can't see all of it i actually drive quite blind we've never seen a buggy like it people do stop us a lot and they want to know all the questions about the babies and the pregnancy and they go right down to your sex life really nitty gritty and it's none of their business before heading back home for the afternoon shift in a minute i know you're next i'm shattered i keep saying it's like having a job and it is like having a job i don't get a day off this is me every single day i know it's gonna be the hardest thing i've ever done and it is the hardest thing i've ever done finally a quarter past six bedtime so i'll clean up now so when matt comes home from work he walks into a nice a nice atmosphere and our cup tea woman's job's never done with the kids tucked up in bed matt returns home from work hi hi you okay don't go there telling me you're tired you're in trouble now he may be shattered but tomorrow matt's taking on what could be the biggest job of his life cat needs to take callum to hospital for eye surgery and she's leaving matt in charge of the quads for the first time since they were born there we go foolproof but she's not leaving anything to chance what do you think of that routine bottle breakfast toast do the nappies get dressed play time for me all the babies nap time one hour lunch pasta daily lunchable bottle of water dinner well i can do all that i don't know what the baby's gonna do all day [Music] i can do that [Music] the vast majority of quadruplets are born through ivf treatment when one or more fertilized eggs are placed in the mother's womb a process that's helped bring stay-at-home dad justin's awesome foursome into the world now almost three his girls are at an age of maximum mobility and minimum sense yeah i don't want my caroline yeah she's fine obviously growling for little three-year-olds is a nightmare in some cases but obviously here it's a locked compound so they can't go anywhere patience is a good virtue and evidently i have loads of patients um you just take things nice and calm and easy don't get stressed out because the end of the day if you get stressed out it's going to obviously impact with the girls [Music] yeah monkey i wouldn't stop it either for the euro millions [Music] justin lives in rotherham with his wife christine who works as an a e nurse after trying for nearly 10 years to conceive they decided to try ivf and it was after just one round of treatment that they got the shock of their lives he held up his fingers you're having quadruplets he's like wow all right really shocked enough for he was kidding us i was like are you joking we're having full they had to scan us two or three times to make sure and the whole of the fertility clinic were like bouncing up and down because we were the talk of the whole clinic conception may have come quickly but for christine bringing the babies into the world couldn't come quickly enough i couldn't walk from this sofa to there in the end i was that breathless um i was in so much pain i wasn't sleeping and in total i spent about 10 weeks in hospital giving birth to four children carries increased risks and that's not just for the babies the worst case scenario is i have no one and that can lose four little children and my wife can actually die as well it says shivers down in my spine now even today you know some nearly three years old it's generally recommended that quads are delivered 10 weeks premature but less time spent in the womb can lead to an underdeveloped immune system this is alexis medicine it's called a moximilian or moxicillium alexis has just come out of hospital after five days and her sister alicia has just gone in with the same chest infection as well as being prone to infections being delivered early can result in food intolerances something justin is only too aware of they had reflux and it turned out ultimately it was an intolerance to milk and to sawyer and caroline and darcy they cause it should be sick and it'll go for about five or six foot and we've got lovely plum curtains in our bedroom with a dash of grey now it doesn't come out justin may be a toddler down but he's determined to carry on as normal anybody will tell you with multiples when we have two three four five six seven one number routine is key actually if you break the routine you then have payback from the children involved they will give you grief but there is one eventuality that even he can't plan for carol and i have decided to do a poop in the bathroom yeah i know you have [Music] raising quadruplets is a unique challenge and the only way to learn is through hands-on experience in stockport it's 6 30 in the morning and car salesman matt's alarm clock is ringing come on his one-year-old quads have just woken up good morning mum cat has taken older son callum to hospital for eye surgery leaving matt alone with their four babies for the first time since they were born what's daddy got you're gonna cause daddy some problems oh should we have some fun we're gonna have some fun today i think matt might not be selling cars but he's got four demanding customers to keep happy silence five minutes worth of peace heaven [Music] heaven just trying to sneak myself a cup of tea oh that's nice that's nice it's like poetry although he has cats routine as a road map where's the bubbles today matt's decided to go off-road with the [Music] i'm quads cool dude i love my job it's something i've always done but moments like this have to be cherished don't they [Music] despite a fun morning a shorter than usual nap is catching up with the babies no roman [Music] no hands off stop being all good [Music] oh i'm sorry i'm sorry probably wondering where the where cat is um they do a bottle and they've got wet clothes all my fault fortunately for matt cat's home to help with bedtime so have you found it today hard work tiring aston had bumped his head over there at one point so he was on the floor crying i think i had sofia laying in front of me trying to change her i'm impressed with the change oh man the physical demands of quadruplet babies and toddlers can certainly be daunting but as they reach school age a whole new set of emotional challenges emerge in peterborough simon and emily bates are at home with their six-year-olds [Music] son leo and daughters carrie kaley and jessie may we decided when we got engaged that when we got married that was the point we're going to start trying for a family that's what we hoped for and then it wasn't happening and getting quite upset it was quite stressful and during those there were dark days we turned to medical help to maximize the chance of giving birth to at least one child three embryos were implanted into emily against the odds all three developed and by chance one of the embryos split creating the twins because they discovered it so late we only had like a week where we had to make a decision whether to reduce to or not due to the added dangers of having quadruplets it's generally recommended that mothers terminate one or more of the developing fetuses in emily's case it was the twins we were referred to a specialist in paris pregnancy and when we got there he thought we'd been we'd been booked in to have a procedure to have them reduced and we thought we were just going for counselling against medical advice they decided to go ahead with all four babies as hell this whole pregnancy is on a knife edge at 30 weeks they were born by caesarean yeah that was the 21st of may 2009 their birthday we were very lucky all healthy they were all alive they'd laugh in the special care baby unit how are you going to cope with four babies when you get them home [Music] [Laughter] [Music] all right so what do you want leo hurry to carry what do you want the quadruplets are now six years old happy and healthy do you not want honey i do okay so that their teacher can have a little bit of help telling them apart we put different color bubbles in jessie and kaylee's hair josie's got a chickenpox scar just there so you can't tell unless you move their fringe but there have been some concerns over the twins progress i personally feel as a mother it did seem that jessie and caleb were more impacted by their prematurity than the others yeah because they were behind like coding coordination skills and this even now isn't it two of them in a bid to help the twins catch up with their siblings the family recently took the decision to move all the children to a private school that best catered to their needs they went for a couple of days to try out they were assessed and school did feel that it would benefit them to be back in year one to bring them back up can you get your shoes on please let's go go go we've given them all a chance the best opportunity they've all got the same to have an equal chance in life [Music] jess put it under the thing so it's under property i'm not guessing oh sorry i thought you was just but the knock-on effect of paying four sets of school fees has meant emily has had to return to full-time work now juggling a 50-hour week with looking after the quads it's been almost impossible are me doing all the school runs by myself because simon he's he leaves the house at quarter to seven and he's not until like half six quarter seven so i i can't do it but i can't physically do it by myself anymore to cope with the added stress the family have had to make a major life decision the quads will soon be living monday to friday with their grandmother so emily can work she's offered to do this and she's made sacrifices to be there for her grandchildren you know is the best option that they can work out to be able to fold it do it and keep going as we are we're making this sacrifice all three of us because we want for them i suppose i won't be doing really doing these anymore so i won't miss the fighting ones i miss these ones where we're all getting on and it's harmonious there comes a time in every parent's life when their kids want to be in the driving seat but what happens when four of them want to take the wheel at the same time hello my name is jessica carlos hello my name is holly and i'm nine years old i'm ellie i am georgie i am the best these four girls are amongst the rarest quadruplets in the world [Music] naturally conceived they're genetically identical while we got four um it's probably more me than you to do my age and the eggs being weaker one egg was fertilized and that one egg split into four but remained in one sack so it didn't separate out and therefore they were all joined to one placenta to actually survive the pregnancy with four healthy children was in the billions a decade on and the girls are about to celebrate their 10th birthday [Music] don't write them yet let me give everybody two invitations so we can just decide who we want them to be and they're going to be right mom julie has organized a bowling party the girls might be in charge of who comes but invites are strictly rationed even though i really want to invite other ones of my friends even because but i'm only allowed to invite too because there's four of us we've all got to invite two people this is part of their life they don't know anything different so they just accept that you know there's four of us and mum says we can only invite two so that's all we can invite but they're also on the other side of that they're lucky that they've actually got three other sisters at all the time so they've got three best friends anyway but best friends can also be the best of enemies [Music] despite being born within four minutes of each other a natural pecking order is emerging we're identical but i'm assuming it's older than my sister so i'm actually the oldest she likes to boss us around a little bit because she's the eldest well this goes a bit whiny yes i love living with my sisters because they are my favorite thing in the whole world and i love them holly and jessica are n.o.t cute they are not cute if you think they're cute they are not cute the worst thing about being a quad is that i get annoyed by georgie she's very very mean to me most of the time do you have your child be quiet now let me have as much leathers as i was out wow that really stinks you really stopped what's going on [Music] right you don't need to cry well you don't hit people do you understand yeah excuse me yes don't talk to me in that time young lady it's always jess and georgie always don't know what it is about those two they just like repel against each other george is very bossy and jessica looks up to georgie and i suppose there's a certain amount of i want georgie to be proud of me and what she does holly gets involved because she sticks up for her sister which is quite sweet but it makes it worse you've got a wall on your hands [Music] when you're suddenly blessed with four new arrivals extended family can be a lifesaver and over in peterborough emily's quads are getting ready to stay with their ground because you're going to be at grandma's most the time we're sorting out what you really want there and then we're going to have some bits that you keep here and then everything else we don't want is going so it's a good opportunity to clear out emily recently returned to full-time work to help pay for the children's school fees and her mom has stepped in to help with the child care the children now are going to live with mum five nights a week and they spend the rest of the time here it was my mum's idea um she's always been like a third parent anyway come on carrie mommy keep calling me okay paul for here in the car for grandma's doing it this way it means that we actually get more quality time with them because the weekends are the weekends i was working at weekends to make it work and it was putting the pressure on everybody is there anything you want to chuck out no no are we giving anyway [Music] i think i'm always questioning whether i'm doing the right thing for my children right from the moment they were conceived having chords isn't ordinary and what we're doing is i suppose it's quite extraordinary really with the school and i think that's that's just how it is you want somebody now some more chips the next time simon and emily see the quads will be at the weekend [Music] up in rotherham with alicia now out of hospital the clark's three-year-olds are all back home and vying for mum and dad's attention [Music] having four children of the same age all wanting the same thing at the same time can be difficult for parents and can also impact on the children's development they are slightly behind on a language but and then you're going to get that with four children the same age and you can't obviously give the one to one that other children would get and sometimes you you do feel i wish you can could do that and you just can't there's just like no way you can [Music] today the girls have been privately assessed to see how they're progressing [Music] penny lazelle has worked in child health care for 15 years and has experience in helping families with multiples who likes making tea english penny's assessment includes social and emotional development how they're doing with their motor skills wow oh that's very good i want you to throw a ball so i've just demonstrated that for you really what do you think and importantly language development what's that it's a tree isn't it well done because multiples often get less one-to-one with their parents they sometimes come up with their own unique ways of communicating with each other they do actually have their own little language tipped together and speak speak amongst themselves it can be sort of quite sort of intimate and insular um just the four of them together so sometimes that can make them quite lazy what we're looking for in children's speech language the biggest thing is that they've got an understanding what sort of noise does the cat make i'm sure you know it is sort of and it's also quite difficult for you to do but to sit down and read stories sing rhymes things like that so you're not just specifically looking at at single words and things like that you're actually putting all those words into context you gonna say bye bye girls it may be in you know a couple of months if things haven't progressed um speech and language assessment you know may be indicated but at the moment i think considering their prematurity considering there's four of them i think you know that at their age appropriately um developing in that area that was really good actually yeah sort of knowing that they're on par really that that's probably due to the hard work that us guys put in with the girls [Music] dividing your attention between quadruplets of any age is undoubtedly an incredibly difficult task one mother who realized early on she would need help coping was cat in stockport tonight she's got a very special visitor at the davis family home where do you think you're going this isn't a free-for-all no professional nanny christina has traveled up from london to look after the kids so matt and cat can go on a long overdue [Music] i date you've grown out of these straps i do you're no longer the smallest raymond who are you christine who met the family when the quads first came home from hospital working as a volunteer provided by tamba the twins and multiple births association i remember messaging i'm sure it was like five o'clock in the morning to just walk out the house and i was like where is all this help yourself and then a couple of weeks later christina was here and you um you just turned my household upside down basically she um she came in like this absolute tasmanian devils went right you sleep at this time you go bed at that time you have a bottle at this time so matt went to work that morning came home that night and the babies were all in bed fast asleep and i couldn't believe his eyes he just completely changed the world that we was living in i did it i just guided you gently she's my angel she saved me [Music] we used to go out every thursday friday saturday sunday night now i don't know how we used to be able to afford it it's really hard with quads to go out he's getting babysitters anybody look after one but you get more than one and it's a big responsibility and i probably wouldn't want that myself if it was somebody else's kids well it's a shame that i have to get someone all the way from london to come up to babysit for us you know it's if you're not around the corner it has to be very planned in peterborough it's the first day of the new regime for grandma louise and her four grandchildren six-year-olds carrie leo kaylee and jessie may have stayed over at their grands before but now they are living with her full time during the school week [Music] i get in i get their focus obviously they're hungry and after tea try to get one to do their homework their reading and then after they've all done their reading it's have a little wash get ready for bed and get been as quick as you can as quick as you can get away with right he's only ready go and sit at the table grandma bring it in all right there's more toast to come no i'm never in my wildest dreams i thought i'd be a grandma um go and visit have a cuddle they go bye-bye i'm off and on well nobody visualize this because being here is different and it's still the changeover so i've let them all sleep in my bed and we'll see how if they don't settle down then grandma i'll be up there hot foot and why are you grandma's house because we're having a sleepover how often do you have sleepovers do you like having sleep yeah what's fun about being on the sleeve how does he get to sleep in grandma's bed and we love love to vlog although the kids seem to have settled in as the week wears on the more emily wonders if she's doing the right thing this separation really upsets me sometimes the house is quiet they're not here and that's hard to take hello oh hello how's it going mom's done their homework yeah how much have they got well oh what's going on is that leo yeah i know i don't know what the problem is do you want me to come around yeah if you've done monks i think they'd appreciate it [Music] right bye [Music] so what were they at with their homework hey jessie swellings just villains what about reading oh are you coming to help me yes it's very quiet i wasn't expecting that how was school today i only got two mystery babes please [Music] why do you want to go home do you want your new beds she'll have your beds at the weekend oh the children they do miss us when we're not there but then they miss my mum as well when my mum's not there and they want to be with my mum so she's just become a massive really entwined in their lives all entwined in each other's lives leo do you miss me did you miss me it wasn't working my mum offered to do this my mum suggested it because she saw how we were struggling have you got everything you want to take to bed yeah well brush your teeth ready then in the past the enormity of looking after four children or developing at the same time did take its toll on emily it was difficult a lot of sleepless nights i felt like i was trapped it was just physically exhausting because you were just constantly on the go almost impossible i'd say definitely there was desperate periods or one time i woke up in the morning and they were screaming and i just thought i can't get out of bed i can't face it so i rang an nhs child line somebody just listened because i said i've lost the plot one of them's wet themselves but i felt they were doing it deliberately that's how i wasn't thinking rationally and then the health visitor did all these things like postnatal depression test she said you're really depressed and i said no i'm just overwhelmed anyone would be [Music] it was a very very difficult time what like you're having a bit of a rocky day today and i was missing them all and it's probably because we're sensing that they're upset as well with it all right we deal with them just as well as i do it's like chasing around the house with the brooms yeah whatever you need to do all right i'll get back drinks i'm up early tomorrow for work and you've got to be up early with the kids haven't you all right i'll see you in the week i'll give you a ring tomorrow anywhere ring me see how you're getting on when you've got four babies at home spending time as a couple can be difficult in stockport parents matt and cat are on a rare date with supernanny christina at home babysitting it's a chance to reflect on their first year as quad parents back now at the time i was going through everything i was thinking god this needs to hurry up and you know the bottle feeds and the night beads and yeah this needs to hurry up we need to get over this stage and now i look back and i think i should do that again but take my time and enjoy it that day was you were at the hospital with callum it was hard yeah but you know you have to do it every day i don't and i probably took it for granted yeah you definitely did so you know where you think you go to work nine hours i get two hours before you every morning and when you come home from work at night i'm still working for another three hours before i actually sit down with you some nights i don't sit down till ten and i probably didn't realize just how involved and stressful your day can get until i obviously did it that one time at least now you know it's not like that it did definitely change my perspective because you know i used to think it was just the case if you'd put the baby to sleep you'd go watch tv for half an hour or you'd put your feet up there's none of that he's pot washing he's making sure the bottles are done you know and stuff i didn't think about you can sleep in the bed tonight now you said that i can't believe it's been a month since the bates quads have been living at their grandmas during the week [Music] since being at their new school twins jessie and kaylee have made great progress and are moving up to join their siblings in year two yeah and it's better they're all together definitely yeah i know they're not a year behind the other two so they're all together and where they should be yeah it's good for their dignity jesse and kaylee weird question is being a parent whoever always all the time am i doing the right thing am i being fair and we think off overall we're doing this to be fair that's the main reason it's definitely the right choice yeah it's hard work but yeah they're really doing well now but there is one member of the family that isn't happy is it nice having your sisters in the same classes yeah why not and because they're really annoying in [Music] it's the carles quadruplet's 10th birthday party i think it's amazing actually when you think about how the chances of survival were very slim lively and bubbly [Applause] [Music] when they were born we had no idea what was ahead of us at all i don't think that could never certainly couldn't imagine picturing something like this and now we've got a picture in the next 10 years i just can't imagine that either [Music] [Music] [Applause] wow watching them grow into young ladies and watching what path they choose that's the bit i'm looking forward to the most i think i believe maybe the next three or four years might be quite hard as they hit teenagers and myself as a teenager i was quite hideous so i'm not looking forward to that all coming back at me fourfold [Music] comfy and you jesse do you like being part of a set of quadruplets obviously i like it here it's just kind of crazy i think we've got the best bond between me and my sisters no one else ever met in my life has actually had identical quads and it feels a bit strange but i've learned to live with it now and it's pretty awesome a quick scene raising quadruplets isn't easy and with each age comes a new challenge [Music] today our four extraordinary families are getting together i'm not overwhelmed to see so many quads i keep looking at the ball and i keep thinking god do you all look alike and mine look nothing alive everybody looks at mine sometimes and says they look alike it's a rare chance to share their experiences with the only people who could ever understand to me seeing the babies brought back some quite emotional memories and caught some horrendous ones without thinking i couldn't do it again when your family walked in i just thought wow how do they do that that looks amazing the hardest part for me i remember was when they were 18 months two years old i'm sorry i'm sorry cat it can't possibly be harder than listening to your baby screaming for food while you're feeling two other babies you know sure the jury is still out over who has the hardest job but one thing's for sure living with quads can be as rewarding as it is tough being the youngest obviously having people like you who have gone through it at three six and ten you know it's like you see the light at the end of the tunnel what age did it stop [Music] you

Channel: Real Families

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Keywords: quadruplets, identical quadruplets, how quadruplets are formed, identical quadruplets grown up, Real Families, Full documentary, Parenting Documentary, Tips for parents, twins triplets quadruplets quintuplets, quintuplets, babies, twins, baby, multiples, triplets, pregnancy, infertility, parenting, worlds most beautiful sisters, motherhood, full length documentaries, free documentary, extraordinary people, multiple births, parenting 101, parenting advice, full episodes, family documentary

Id: j5oxxQS2iTc

Length: 46min 1sec (2761 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 10 2021