Each has her toes painted a different colour with the first letter of each polish matching the triplet's name. 

A couple have started colour coding their identical triplets because they can't tell them apart.

Sisters Ffion, Maddison and Paige Gilbert have already appeared on TV drama series Casualty and Stella - sharing the role of a single baby - because they look so alike.

And proud parents Karen and Ian paint their toes with a different colour nail varnish in order to tell who is who.

Baby Ffion has fuschia polish on her toenails; Maddison wears mint green and Paige's toe nails are painted purple.

Each colour matches the first letter of the triplet's name.

Mum Karen, 33, said: "It's not a fashion statement. We really struggle to tell them apart.

"We came up with the nail varnish idea and it works a treat.

"It makes life a lot easier when it comes to our daily routine of feeding, bathing and nappy changing.

"The colour coding helps us to know who has had what!"

The triplets were conceived naturally from one egg - defying odds of 160,000-1, according to the Multiple Births Foundation.

Ffion weighed 3lbs 8oz, , Maddison scaled 3lbs 5oz and and Paige was just 3lb 4oz when they were born two months early after an emergency caesarean section.

The triplets celebrated their first birthday at the weekend and get through 120 nappies and 84 bottles of formula milk each week.

Karen and company director dad Ian are hoping their daughters will develop individual looks and character-traits as they get older - making it easier to tell them apart.

TV producers have used the triplets to play the same baby on screen because their identical looks means they can be rotated during filming - to prevent a single baby getting too tired.

Full-time mum Karen, from Pontypool, South Wales, said: "They are all TV stars before they reached the age of one.

"They are lovely little girls who have already brought us so much joy - in triplicate.

"It has been a frantic but fun-filled year.

"Going out is a military operation which we call 'Operation Triplets'.

"We can't just think, 'Oh, shall we go out?' We need at least 24 hours notice. It's like packing to go on holiday every time we leave the house.

"We have a triple pushchair and we've had to get a bigger car, a seven-seater Ford Galaxy."

Their local Morrisons supermarket has ordered a treble baby seat shopping trolley to help the family.

And the triplets elder sister Faye, four, helps out with the painting of their toe nails.

Mum Karen said: "We have treble trouble - but we would not have it any other way."