ACCORDING to the saying, 'three's a crowd', but for a Northwich family which gained a trio of tots this year, life couldn't be happier.

The triplets are a dream come true for proud parents Craig and Louise Jennings, of Water Street, who wanted to start a family when they got married seven years ago.

But life underwent a complete transformation on April 23 this year, when Louise gave birth to not one but three healthy babies, as Charlotte, Edward and Thomas, now seven months old, were welcomed into the world.

Louise, in her early 40s, said: "I never thought I'd have any children - this was my last chance."

The triplets were born with the aid of IVF treatment on the couple's second attempt.

Louise said: "When people see us with the triplets, they say 'three for the price of two', and it actually was because we had two goes."

Sheila Taylor, grandma to the three, said: "This is the family that Louise never thought she'd have.

"She never moans about them or gets uptight and I'm so proud of all of them because it's been really hard feeding through the night and neither she nor Craig got any sleep.

"I think they're marvellous."

Sheila was an invaluable help to her daughter Louise with the newborn triplets, coming to the house from 8am to help with breakfasts.

Louise said: "I don't know what I'd do without her.

"Feeding time is probably the worst because they've slept through the night since they were about four months, but at first we could be up for about two hours at a time, and premature babies feed slowly - they can take an hour to feed."

The triplets were born eight weeks early at Liverpool Women's Hospital, and came out of hospital five weeks sooner than their original due date.

Louise was expecting twins but only found out she was having triplets when she was nine weeks pregnant, and a scan revealed that one of the eggs had split - resulting in the two identical brothers Edward and Thomas, who are already starting to cause confusion among the family.

Grandma Sheila admitted that she cannot tell the difference between them at all and Louise said the only clue was that Thomas had a birthmark on his head.

Since the birth of the triplets, the family have gained celebrity status in the town and soon became the focus of attention when going on an outing with the triple pushchair.

Louise said: "Whenever we go out we get a lot of attention and a lot of older people remark that they've never seen triplets before.

"But it's also amazing how many people say: 'Oh, I'm a twin too'.

"The attention can be a problem sometimes when we're trying to get home for feeding.

"A lot of older people say that we've made their day and there was a woman who said 'you're so lucky' and I thought she was going to burst into tears."

And as for any advice Louise could give to parents expecting twins or triplets, she said: "It's not as bad as you think - it's not been as hard as we thought it would be - just forget any housework."

gbebbington@guardiangrp.co.uk