Trying to breastfeed both twins, how do you do it?

Lauren201312

My twins are 16 days old, A was in the nursery for 12 days due to problems breathing. B has been home with us for about 10 days. My milk was really slow to come in (8 days pp) and so we've had to supplement with formula. I currently produce enough probably for one baby. Drs didn't want A at the breast too many times a day so as not to tire her out and expend calories so she could get back up to birth weight. She has surpassed that so I've been given the advice to BF 3 times a day and bottle pumped BM/formula other feeds. Same for B. I am having a really, really though time scheduling who feeds at the breast, who bottle feeds, when to pump and when to eat/sleep/do anything else! I'm hoping there might be other moms out there who can give some advice. How to you schedule and figure it all out? I'm starting to dread BF and pumping sessions because it's just so much easier to feed with a bottle. I really want BF to work out. How do you do it? We will be seeing a LC nurse next week so hopefully that will help.

ceechie

I really struggled at first. It was so disheartening for me. But I just really kept at it. An LC is good to. Mine really helped me to keep going. My goal was a month. If I got there, then I'd reevaluate. At the months end, I was doing every feeding except one at night for sanity.
Get a scheduling journal. That helped a lot. There are also apps, but I'm bad at those. I preferred pen to paper.

24karat

I could have written your post, it's so similar to our story. Thankfully my mom stayed with us for the first few weeks PP so she helped with the bottle feeding when DH went back to work. Other than that though, I would football-hold a baby on one side and pump the other (I have an electric that can be converted to manual) at the same time to take advantage of my milk let down. My A was a lazy nurser and had latch issues as well so it took him till about a month and a half ago (they're almost 5 months) to finally get into the swing of things with nursing. His brother was better so for the first few months he'd nurse most sessions while his brother would get the pumped bottle or some of the formula we supplemented with. We just kept switching it up as A got better and I've been able to tandem feed them for a month now.

Have you considered exclusively pumping? If you have a good double electric you might want to try that so you can have a consistent schedule to start with. Or you could pump a few of the feedings and nurse the others. 

TobieRose

This is what they had me do in the hospital: 

Breastfeed A for fifteen minutes (or try for fifteen minutes, even if we weren't successful). Then supplement with formula. Repeat with B. Then pump. Repeat every three hours. 

This helped my milk to come in and build my supply even when the boys weren't nursing well, and it made sure they were getting enough to eat while teaching them to nurse. Eventually they were nursing well enough and my supply was established so that we cut out the formula entirely. 

I would highly, highly recommend keeping a notebook where you keep track of who eats what when, for how long, etc. I found there was no way I could keep track of it without writing it down someplace! 

SWA80

It is so hard at first but it does get so much easier as you and the babies get better at it. Bottle feeds are easier now but later BF will be. Experiment with tandem feeding and pumping while you feed on the other side. This worked well for me. Good luck!

somewhereincali

SWA80 said:

Bottle feeds are easier now but later BF will be.

This is so true! At first pumping/bottles is easier but if you can hang in their with the BF eventually it's so so easy to just be able to nurse anywhere anytime

Lauren201312

Thank you everyone! There is some great advise here. I already write it all down, but I think I may need a prearranged schedule.

lwatkins12

I tandem feed in demand and sometimes just feed one. I have a Twin Z pillow that I couldn't live without and an app on my phone where I log all sessions. I feel like trying to bottle feed 2 now would be very hard because I can just plop them both on the pillow and be hands free. However, mine are only 7 weeks and I'm not sure how long I'll BF. I pump sometimes to let my husband feed and give me a break but I find it very hard to build up much of a supply b/c I feel like mine eat constantly.

Stephanie2167

I'm currently nursing, pumping and supplementing. I try and pump every two hours. One of my twins nurses well, the other is lazy. I supplement when I haven't pumped enough or if latching in the middle of the night is a disaster for my lazy nurser.

Its so confusing. We dealt with jaundice and 10% weight loss in the hospital so the pedi asked that I supplement.

Just keep trying. My nipples are pretty sore but nowhere as bad as it was with DD. It took 6 weeks for her to get the concept.

Keep at it. You're doing great.

JodiAriel

I fed on demand from day 1.  Most often I fed one at a time back to back.  It took longer but was less stressful for me then trying to get two newborns to latch at the same time.  We always did one up, both up so whoever woke up first got changed, ate, put back down and then I would wake the second baby.  From about 7 mos on when they started sitting up to nurse I would occasionally tandem feed and now at 13 mos all they want to do is tandem nurse.

I pumped every day 2x a day, in the AM when I first awoke before I fed the babies and last thing before I went to bed.  We used it to give them their bedtime bottle from the beginning so they werent dependent on me nursing them to bed.  I am starting to cut down on my pumping since I have a huge freezer stash and the woman I was donating milk to no longer needs it.  I am still nursing though 3-5 times a day.