A FATHER-of-seven has revealed some of his hints and tips for keeping a baby-proof home after he and his wife welcomed quintuplets.
Chad Kempel, from San Mateo, California, has spent the past year ensuring the entire house is safe for his big brood by creating his own custom furniture and inventing a way to feed five babies at once.
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The super-dad, a management analyst, and his wife Amy, conceived the quintuplets through fertility treatment after suffering four miscarriages and losing their twins who were born prematurely.
Quintuplets Lincoln, Noelle, Grayson, Preston and Gabriella are now 18 months old and have two older siblings, Savannah, four, and Avery, three, keeping Chad’s hands full.
“When the doctor said he could hear four heartbeats and then a fifth, we couldn’t believe it,” explained the 37-year-old, who holds the world record for the fastest marathon while pushing a five-baby-stroller.
“When we found out there would be five didn’t know how we would cope, but after losing the twins in 2013, we knew we just had to go for it.”
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Chad and Amy gave birth to their quints in January 2018 and all five of the babies weighed 2.5lbs after being born by cesarean at 27 weeks.
While most parents struggle to juggle one child day to day, Chad and Amy are natural born pros, and so decided to film their life hacks to share with other mums and dads online.
“One of the first things we had to do was create a big playroom, somewhere we knew they could all be at the same time without any dangers,” continued Chad. “We had to take anything sharp or valuable out.”
Another problem to overcome was travel – with the family struggling to fit the quints and their older sisters into the car.
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“We converted a transit van into a baby bus which has a changing table inside as well as a television to give our older girls something to do when we feed and change the quints on a journey,” he added.
“We have made all these different props to help the basic tasks. And while companies do sell stuff that help deal with multiples, the prices are crazy, so I just made my own.”
With mealtimes ending up ‘hectic’ for the family, with the little ones liking to throw their food around, they even created a special table to stop the mess and bottle feeding system to cut down time.
“We have made props to hold their bottles for them when feeding so we don’t have to feed them one at a time,” he noted. “As by the time we got them all fed, the first baby would need feeding again.
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“And it’s a lot like the movie ‘Home Alone’ when we travel,” Chad joked. “I’ll be running in the front and we’ll have our army of children following behind.
“There’s always so much to do – I’m sure anyone can imagine what it’s like to have five babies to look after – the job never really stops.”
In between being a super parent, Chad recently gained a world record for running a marathon whilst pushing his baby quints to the finish line.
“The race was really hard because we had five children to take care of along the way with feeding and changing happening throughout,” he explained.
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“One technique that worked really well was double diapering them so whenever they needed changing, I could whip one off and have the next on in half the time.
“I even decided to run an extra mile, making the total distance 27.3 miles to commemorate the 27 weeks and three days my amazing wife carried our quintuplets.”
In other news, a mum gave birth to her brother’s baby so he and his partner could avoid using a stranger as a surrogate.
