We need our own cow the milk we use

IN the Sullivan household, the alarm goes off at 5am and Ben and Zoe begin their non-stop routine of breakfast-making, teeth-brushing and getting their children dressed.

“You have to literally be on it from the minute you open your eyes,” says Ben. By 7.30am, Ben heads off to work as an RAF aircraft engineer, while Zoe makes sure Elizabeth, 15, Olivia, 13, twins Isabelle and Charlotte, 12, Noah, 10, Eva, eight and twins Leah and Erin, four, all get to school and nursery.

Then she heads home to look after three-year-old Agnes May and Joseph, two – and to clean up their house with one bathroom.

“It wasn’t a conscious decision to have this many children, we just did,” says 45-year-old Ben.

The couple and their 11 children live in Lossiemouth, Scotland. “Life in a big family is fun, but pretty crazy and noisy,” says Eva. Charlotte agrees: “It’s never too quiet. That’s a bad thing if it’s quiet, it means one of the little ones has escaped or something.”

With an income of around £600 a week, they spend £300 a week on food.

“It’s like a Travelodge,” says Ben, glancing at 15 boxes of cereal. “The milk we get through, we need our own cow!” says 42-year-old Zoe.

She adds: “There are things that we don’t do. We don’t really have holidays.”

The couple save all year for Christmas, budgeting for £3,000 (three times the average family spend). “Seeing their faces is magical,” says Zoe, who would like another baby.

You have to be on it the minute you open your eyes

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