She devoted an entire shelf — not just a charming little basket — to diapers. (“Really stock up. You won’t believe how fast you go through things.”) And she color-coded the girls’ clothing to help others tell them apart: red for Ruthie, green for Georgie.

Becky DeStefanis, 34, and John Spirtas, 33, parents of 2-year-old triplets, have some counterintuitive advice for couples expecting multiples: Resist the impulse to move to a bigger house right away.

DeStefanis and Spirtas, who live in a small suburban Cape Cod, say it’s easier to monitor children in a smaller space, where there are fewer places for them to get hurt in. “And when things get lost, there are only a few rooms where they can be,” DeStefanis says.

When the triplets were newborns, the couple put a mini-fridge and crockpot filled with water in the upstairs nursery so they could easily warm bottles in the middle of the night. They created a chart to track when each baby was changed, and when and how much they ate. “It’s easy to forget who’s doing what when,” DeStefanis says.

To contain daytime activities to the first floor, the couple turned the den into a nap room when Ben, Ella and Marie were infants. A little-used end of the kitchen became a changing and dressing area, and the dining room became a playroom, complete with bright-colored rubber floor mats to cushion unsteady toddlers.

They also put a clear plastic shoe holder to clever use: They hung one on a kitchen door to store bottles and, eventually, sippy cups. “Everything is about ease of use, seeing what you need and getting to things quickly,” Spirtas says. “Especially in the beginning, because you’re asleep all the time.” Parker Rea, 33, and her husband, James, 37, are expecting twin boys in June. They plan to stay in their Washington townhouse for the time being. Though space will be tighter, they’ve decided to rearrange things rather than move.

“Right now we’re looking at our space and thinking about how to make it more efficient,” Parker says. Bulky antiques will be put in storage and replaced with smaller, less precious storage pieces, and the boys will share a room with two small-scale cribs. “I think it’s about getting creative about how you’re going to make it work.”

Another good piece of advice: Avoid buying too much baby gear. Kate Hood, 35, a suburban mother of 1-year-old twins and a 3-year-old, says it’s a mistake to think that a home with multiples needs multiple swings and multiple bouncy seats.

“Two babies does not automatically mean two of everything,” she wrote in an e-mail. “And the gear will take over your house regardless, so try to keep it as minimal as possible.”

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