I've made a few changes based on your requests. Keep the stories coming!
New category:
Please comment here to add any perspectives you have about breastfeeding in the NICU, dealing with lactation consultants, preemies bf-ing issues, etc. Comments will be kept
open indefinitely so that moms of multiples can continue to learn from
each other. Please keep your comments respectful and encouraging.
When I was breastfeeding twins, I had limited access to information about the issues that can come up. Kellymom and Karen Kerkhoff Gromada's book Mothering Multiples: Breastfeeding & Caring for Twins or More were about it, and while very helpful, we each find our own way of doing things that works*
I think I may be able to contribute something to what’s available, and I need your help. As mentioned here, I get lots of Google hits every week, as well as regular e-mails, from moms who are considering, having difficulty, or about to give up breastfeeding their (often preemie) multiples. My own experience is just one experience, and what we did will not work for everyone.
I'm setting up a repository of breastfeeding stories by mothers of multiples. What worked for you? What didn’t? How do you feel about it now? What do you wish you had done differently? Did you supplement, and how did that work? Feel free to tell it like a story, a list of facts, a chronology, advice, memories, whatever you want. I’ve set up a Typelist to the left so anyone can go right there and read all the stories. I’ve posted several categories for the stories to go into, so just pick one below. When they’re no longer on the main page, you’ll be able to find them to the left.
Let's keep it along the lines of "this is what worked for us", and leave the heated debates for some other forum. There is certainly something to be said for peer-reviewed research, statistics, and science. But there is also something to be said for stories, experiences, and perspectives.
Please consider sharing your hard-won perspective and giving a little encouragement to moms of twins or more who want to breastfeed.
If you didn’t breastfeed, for whatever reason, this is not intended to make anyone feel bad or dredge up all that stuff. I promise I’ll continue to post about stuff totally unrelated to breastfeeding (and twins!).
*Personally, I ended up doing things in less of an Attachment Parenting style than I thought I would. We didn’t co-sleep for more than a few months, and we always fed the boys at the same time, for instance. We used bottles of EBM, regularly. When the boys were a year old, and jealousy made it very difficult for us to function as a trio, I put limits on nursing. I’m completely at peace with those decisions, but I still think there’s a dearth of information out there about breastfeeding twins that isn’t specifically AP oriented. I'm not knocking the efforts of Kellymom and other AP moms. AP moms are obviously (and laudably) very committed to breastfeeding, and I think that explains the connection. But I worry that moms who don’t want to co-sleep or feed both twins on demand individually (never waking one up to feed them at the same time) won’t get the information they need, because the only alternative they seem likely to find is a paragraph here and there in mainstream parenting books saying something along the lines of “breastfeeding twins is sometimes possible”. That is not to say that I don't welcome stories about how you AP your twins, just that all are welcome (including those who combined formula and breastfeeding, pumped and had babies who didn't latch, went back to work, or breastfed for a short time) and I hope to eventually have a diverse collection of breastfeeding stories here.
Please comment here to contribute your “breastfeeding story”.
Comments will be kept open indefinitely so that moms of multiples can continue to learn from each other. Please keep your comments respectful and encouraging.
Please comment here to add any perspectives you have about those first weeks of breastfeeding multiples.
Comments will be kept open indefinitely so that moms of multiples can continue to learn from each other. Please keep your comments respectful and encouraging.
Please comment here to add any perspectives you have about breastfeeding higher order multiples.
Comments will be kept open indefinitely so that moms of multiples can continue to learn from each other. Please keep your comments respectful and encouraging.
I get a good chunk of my hits from moms looking to or havig trouble breastfeeding twins, and their google searches often imply that they're about ready to give up. Ex: breastfeeding twins is too hard, breasfeeding twins about to give up, breasfeeding preemie twins no success - and that's just today. I can understand that, because it's not at all easy to breastfeed multiples in the beginning, even if everything is going according to plan. If that's you, please check out the category I have for that purpose, because perhaps my experince, or the links I've posted there, will be helpful to you. I recently read a new twin mom's frustrated post about supply issues with twins, and thought I'd paraphrase my own reply here in case it's helpful to anyone.
Kellymom has some decent information on both breastfeeding multiples and on supply issues.
I think something even lactation consultants rarely seem to understand is that the situation of having more than one is particularly problematic with growth spurts. My intuition and own experience lead me to suspect that getting through growth spurts with twins is the second biggest issue that eventually leads to low supply (the first being not establishing a good supply in the beginning).
With one baby, the baby demands more during a growth spurt, and in a day or 2 your supply increases to meet the demand. Some fussiness is perfectly normal here; it’s part of the process. With twins, however, your actual supply needs to increase doubly, and while your body can most likely do that, it cannot do so twice as fast. What tends to happen then, is that the extra fussiness leads to doubts about supply, the doubts lead to more supplementation with formula, the supplementation leads to less stimulation, which, in turn, leads to not building the necessary supply. Which is to say, none of this means that your body is actually incapable of producing the milk. Some women have genuinely low supply, but this is an often misunderstood issue.
It’s a complex logistical problem though. Over the months, I came to learn that my boys get much more from breastfeeding than I can produce with a pump, so your supply may not be as bad as it seems. I know this is a lot to balance, but if you nurse on demand (at least during the day), have lots of skin-to-skin contact, and pump after every feeding you can manage to, you might find that you can get past the hump and keep breasfeeding even though you've been told you have low supply.
I couldn’t deal with the fussiness in the evenings when my supply was lowest, so I fed them each one bottle of expressed breast milk then, but always bf first, and I pumped after every feeding too. I had a weak suckler in the beginning, and he got much better after a couple of months.
To the exhausted, confused, hormonal and overwhelmed new twin mom reading this in the middle of a long night (as I would've been): whatever you decide, best of luck to you. You are doing a very hard thing, you’re doing your best, and that’s all anyone can ask of you.
*when I say "at least during the day", I'm not suggesting refusing an infant who wants to eat at night. I mean that when one woke, we woke the other too so we could be more likely to get at least a couple of hours of sleep in a row. For me, especially later in the game, the biggest dips in supply came when i was completely exhausted. It takes a ton of calories and energy to produce milk for twins, and I think the need for sleep needs to be dealt with even if it means trying to feed the babies together whenever possible. Neither baby ever seemes to mind being woken to eat in the slightest.
I was commenting and e-mailing with Jenn about this post, and I thought I might as well share the same twin breastfeeding info here, since I get a fair bit of comments and mail from women who want to breastfeed twins. Jenn is pregnant with twins.
Jenn was told by a lactation consultant to wait a few weeks after the twins are born to try tandem breastfeeding. I disagree with this advice, at least as a blanket statement. No matter how wonderful and informed, most LC's don't have any experience trying to get in hours and hours of sequential infant breastfeeding, nor do they understand how supportive that giant nursing pillow
actually is compared to a boppy. Seriously, they're amazing. I'd probably use one with a singleton if it would be balanced. Maybe I could cuddle with a small puppy on the other side?
If it feels more comfortable to wait, fine. But really, once you get going with the pillow, you might be surprised to find you actually have both hands free after a while (if you have them both in the football hold, which is the only way we ever tandem fed). Like this woman (who is NOT me but with whom I had a lot in common this time last year)
I used to write thank-you notes and surf the web, which, ironically, my singleton mommy friends couldn't seem to do! In the beginning, the hard part wasn't getting them latched, it was getting them situated and un-situated. It sounds awful, but we perfected the "pick them up by the sleeper" method, which is perfectly safe and works well as long as you're using a zippered sleeper and they're under about 10 pounds. I would put one one either side of me on the couch and pick them up by the front of the sleeper. It worked well and didn't bug them a bit. But even that took a while, and didn't happen until I was by myself and desperate to feed them both when I was home with them by myself for the first time.
If you have a moment, go check out Jenn 's blog and wish her well. She's about to embark on a challenging, amazing, and ultimately wonderful journey.
Medela Pump In Style, I’m done with you.
After a full year of your wheezy contractions that sound uncannily like “wake-up, wake up”, after a full year of washing and reassembling your parts over and over again, after a full year of catching a few minutes to read or doze while you did your stuff, it is time for me to move on.
The cow, whose milk can be conveniently bought in gallon containers, poured into a sippy, and served in my 4.5 hour a day absence, has replaced you. My boys will continue to breast feed, but not with your mediation.
You did your job well, and I am grateful for the time we spent together. You helped me build up my milk supply when my boys were in the NICU on gavage tubes and too sleepy to nurse yet. I am grateful for the extra sleep you offered me at times, as well as the chance to continue giving only breast milk after I went back to work six months ago. All this from a five-pound contraption in a nifty nylon bag that looks like a large purse. I’m not leaving you because of your looks. Is just that you have more than served your purpose.
And if the tree-hugger in me allowed it, I’d douse you with gasoline, set you in the back yard, and blow you the hell up.
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P.S. For a witty historical perspective on breast pumps, check out this article from Slate.
