The Busbys may share their lives on Outdaughtered,
but there are some things the cameras just don't have time to show — like how parents
Adam and Danielle really manage to take care of all their daughters.
Here are some of the ways these parents of six girls — including quintuplets — pull it off.
With six kids, it's kind of amazing that Adam and Danielle ever manage to get any alone time — but
they actually prioritize each other and their marriage. Though they've gotten quite a bit
of backlash for all their date nights, the Busbys don't have any regrets. In fact, they believe that
by prioritizing the health of their marriage, they are doing a world of good for their daughters.
In a blog post on the family's It's a Buzz World site, Danielle made it clear that they
don't particularly care if people criticize them for their date nights. She explained,
"We whole-heartedly feel like by taking care of our marriage first, we are doing what is
best for our kids. One of the essential things that children need is a loving and secure home
and to us that need can be met only by making sure the relationship between Adam and I is strong."
For the Busbys, hiring a babysitter is essentially
a necessity — and Danielle suggested other parents do the same, writing,
"If you don't spend the time with your spouse,
then you'll just fill it with something less important. My advice is to set
a regular date night and get your babysitter scheduled ahead of time."
Adam and Danielle have their hands full with their six children. But,
because one of those kids is older, they have a built-in helper of sorts — or
"second mama," as Danielle likes to call her oldest daughter, Blayke.
"I'm just like my mommy."
In an interview with Us Weekly, Danielle gave the okay to the interviewer to dub Blayke as the
"second momma" to the quints. Speaking to People magazine, she went even further, admitting that
there's no way she and Adam could have done it without their oldest daughter. She explained,
"I mean, I don't think we could have asked for anything better as far as the adjustment went.
From the day that she found out that she was going
to have five sisters she played with five baby dolls at a time.
She has been so hands on. She'll say: 'Oh, let me get you the wipes.' She's so smart."
Adam and Danielle do plenty of the caring for their quintuplets,
but it doesn't hurt to have such a doting older sister like Blayke.
"We are so so blessed to have that little girl in our life."
When the quints were babies, or learning how to walk, it may have been especially difficult to
keep a close eye on each of them at all times. But the Busbys go one further and carve out
time for each of their many daughters on a regular basis. Danielle told Country Living,
"It will always be a challenge to balance six kids and make sure they each get one-on-one time.
The most difficult part of having a large family is just the logistics of doing anything and
everything. It takes some thought to do everything from cooking dinner to getting out of the house."
Though it isn't easy, by spending quality alone time with each quint,
the Busbys show their daughters how loved they are as individuals.
There's no one right way to parent and no one parent is perfect. But, when you have quintuplets,
even just the thought of getting everything right every time sounds crazy. And for Adam
and Danielle, being able to take things in stride is one of the ways they manage to take
care of all their daughters. In an interview with People, Danielle explained that when things get
overwhelming for them, the only thing they can really do is giggle and move on. She admitted,
"You can only do as much as you can at that moment in time.
Just being able to laugh about a situation, like when all five babies are screaming,
is one of the things we've learned how to do."
Of course, Adam and Danielle do the best they can, but you can't exactly control when babies
start to fuss or when toddlers decide to have a full-out temper tantrum. Luckily,
these parents have taught themselves to sometimes just let it go and laugh.
Having quintuplets is a rare and life-changing event, to say the least. So it's only natural
that Adam and Danielle would require some help adjusting to their new life with six daughters.
Fortunately, they've had some great helpers over the years to assist.
"When Danielle came home with all the babies, everybody's life was changed drastically."
As Danielle wrote in the family's It's a Buzz World blog, the Busbys were able to
attend a Mardi Gras parade thanks to their friends. She explained in the 2017 post,
"This year, the girls are full-on walkers and there was no way that we could have
been able to leave them cooped up in the strollers through the two parades. Luckily,
we had a great group of friends that joined us for the day and
helped us keep a nice little barrier around this crazy group of toddlers."
Earlier in a 2016 interview with Channel Guide Magazine,
Danielle revealed that her sisters and mother would be featured on OutDaughtered quite a bit,
since they were around to regularly help with the young quints.
In big families, it can be easy for one child to get lost in the shuffle. This is especially
true when you have five daughters who are all the same age and all who need something
different from their parents. While you'd probably cut the Busbys some slack if they
lumped some of the kids' needs in together, Adam and Danielle don't allow themselves to do that.
In an interview with People, Danielle expressed how seriously she and Adam take
it to make sure each quint is getting what she specifically needs. She said,
"As the quints get older, they're becoming individuals with their
own struggles, likes, dislikes and opinions."
Danielle added that the decision to move Riley Paige up to kindergarten ahead of her sisters
wasn't easy, but they took each daughter into consideration before pulling the trigger.
"R-I-L-E-Y."
"What does that spell?"
"Uh, me."
Danielle added,
"Knowing where she's at right now, this was our decision based on her.
Of course we looked at the family and how this change affects everyone else."
Adam and Danielle lean on their faith a lot,
especially where their daughters are concerned. As Danielle wrote in a blog post,
their belief system is also a guiding system for their parenting. She explained,
"I am still in shock every day that I actually have six kids [...] and
in awe that God chose me as the mother to these amazing little miracle girls.
Though we as humans get to make our own decisions and say yes and no when
we choose, [...] as Adam and I are Christians we look to the Lord for guidance in our decisions."
It sounds like whatever the Busbys come up against in raising their girls,
they plan to follow their faith.
As many parents can attest, it's hard to know when to discipline your children
and when to give them patience and understanding to figure things out.
Add in some quintuplets and a half-dozen different personalities to the mix,
and you've got the craziness that is the Busby household. Yet Danielle has learned an important
lesson as it relates to managing the care of all her daughters — to give them grace.
In an April 2020 blog post, Danielle wrote about how hectic things had been
for her lately and how she's had to come to that conclusion for herself. She admitted,
"There are days that I want to pull my hair out, [...] there are days I feel like my
girls are obedient, [...] and then there are days I get the 'mom guilt' because all I did
was yell because no one cared to follow or listen to my parenting advice or guidance."
However, she came to the conclusion that she needed to "give grace" to her children
and her husband. After all, no child or spouse is perfect.
If you have more than one child, it can be hard not to make it look like you play favorites. Even
though you love your kids the same, there will be days when one particular child is extra clingy or
needy, requiring more attention. When you're a family in the public eye like the Busbys,
who constantly have people watching their every move, that task becomes nearly impossible.
After Danielle received some harsh criticism for posting more photos of certain kids,
she told In Touch that it doesn't mean she doesn't love her kids the same. She explained,
"I feel like people choose to 'see' what they want and they base their response off
of what they are dealing with in their own life. I 100 percent know my heart
and my love for all my kids are equal. I may not get around to posting 'enough'
of something, [...] but since when is love based off of how much we post on social media?"
Without some form of discipline, one child could be difficult to manage, let alone six.
Although parents differ in how exactly to discipline little ones, the Busbys have found one
method to be effective for their children. In one episode of Outdaughtered, Danielle admitted that
she's had to learn that sometimes her daughters do things just to test her limits. She explained,
"Riley is notorious for spilling her milk on purpose — she does it all the time.
The girls are at that age where they're really
testing boundaries, so we've started doing time-out for when they're bad."
"Time out."
It's not fun to punish your kids, but the Busbys recognize that discipline is an important part
of parenting. They feel that putting their daughters in occasional time-outs helps them
manage the household while also teaching them the importance of listening to their parents.
Every parent differs in how they organize their kids' schedules and there are a million different
philosophies out there about what is "best" for your kids. But for Adam and Danielle,
having a strict schedule is key for taking care of all their daughters.
This was especially true when it came time to bring the quints home from the hospital.
In an interview with People, Danielle explained that she and Adam relied on
a system to get through their days with newborns. She said,
"Everything has to be planned out — even something as simple as going for a walk,
taking a bath, changing diapers."
She explained in a blog post that she had a strict schedule for feeding as well. She wrote,
"When the Busby Quintuplets came home after being in the NICU for 12 weeks,
we HAD TO BE organized when it came to feeding them around the clock."
A rigid schedule might not work for everyone, but it definitely helps the Busbys.
Danielle and Adam may seem like Super Mom and Super Dad to all their fans,
but life with six daughters has presented more than its fair share of challenges. Though the
Busbys handle all their daughters really well, there were still times when they felt
completely in over their heads and barely got any sleep. Adam told People magazine,
"I remember so many times where I would be laying in bed feeding a baby in the middle of the night
and I would be woken up by the sound of a bottle hitting the floor because I just completely fell
asleep and dropped the baby's bottle. You're just running on empty, on no sleep, all the time."
As crazy as it sounds, the Busbys were able to get through it together. Perhaps running on no
sleep actually helped them manage their daughters better, because they became even more of a team.
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