How do you do it by yourself?

lulugirl

DH has been with me non-stop since the babies came home - he goes back to teaching MMA next week.

I will obviously need to feed both babies by myself - what are the best ways you have found to handle 2 alone?

Ours have staggered feedings (about 30 minutes apart) but do sometimes wake at the same time.

1.) Do you get both up at once so you don't have to worry about 1 waking during the other's feeding?

2.) How do you tandem bottle feed?

3.) We burp both babies throughout their feedings (every 1oz) - have you had issues with one freaking out while the other is getting burped?

I think my biggest concern is letting one cry too long b/c I am busy with the other. Evelyn is so small that she does not fit very well into her bouncy or the swing yet - I cannot even strap her in. And if I lay her down she will vomit up her meal.

Can you tell I am nervous? :-)

Sweets2005

It was really hard in the beginning for me! The preemie thing made it worse though.

This is the easiest way to tandem bottle feed for us. I put them in boppies facing away from eachother on the couch and sit on the floor in front. However that hurts my back so sometimes I have one in a boppy next to me on the sofa and the other in my lap. I keep my knee up and the baby on my lap sorta leans against it.

You sorta have to do trial and error to figure out what works best for you. I used to stagger the feedings and do one at a time but I would spend my wholllleeee day feeding babies because they were such slow feeders. Usually it worked out okay if I stayed on schedule but sometimes one would cry before their feeding so I would have to do both. I always tried to do just oen though.

Usually if they got a little milk in them they would be okay if I stopped them to burp one. But not always. Sometimes one just has to cry and you will get over it. Things aren't as smooth when you have twins but such is life!

I had a friend over giving me the side-eye as she watched me juggle my babies but there wasn't much else I could do! Both were crying and wanted to be picked up!

I was so nervous in the beginning, too. It gets easier! It was only rarely that both freaked out at the same time.

Katrina_0087

1)personally i would absolutely wake both to eat at the same time. i immediately put them on the same schedule to get some extra shut eye...even if its just 10 min.

 2) before they could really hold themselves up i set up a breast feeding pillow with pillows around and under it on the couch and sit beside it both hand on a  bottle but you will probably just have to trial and error for what works with them.

3)they may cry while ones getting burped but theirs two babies and one of you. don't freak out about it. it'll happen a lot. 

 

just read the last part...for feeding maybe try propping the other one while holding Evelyn to feed since she sounds tiny.

 HTH

 

groovygrl

it's really hard. 

1. I never got the hang of tandem feeding when they were small, couldn't really do it til they were 4 months old or more...so we fed them separately for the most part and hoped the other wouldn't freak. They did sometimes.

2. see 1

3. when I was able to tandem feed, I would attempt to make sure they took enough in to be content for a minute or two. It was tough.  Eventually they get a little more patient and can wait a little bit. 

Is YH willing to do some night shift? We shift slept (still do at 5 months), MH slept from 9-2 uninterrupted in our room, I slept in with babies or in the next room, then got him at 2 (or whatever time I woke up if I happened to be sleeping at 2). Those 5 hrs uninterrupted made a huge difference for me and helped me deal with the 5 hours I was 'on'.

 

GL!!! It is tough & something different works for everyone...hard to know til you try different things.  

dtwmco

I tandem BF most of the time now, but when they were first home, I staggered feedings, and it usually worked out well since they slept so much. 

At first, the WORST thing for me was the crying.  We couldn't use the bouncy or swing right away, either, due to tiny size.  (Once they got bigger and I still wasn't tandem feeding, these two things were a gigantic help.) 

I felt so awful about the crying, and it was especially troubling to me because at that young age that was really the only feedback I ever got from the girls.  But I know that even with what seemed to me like excessive crying at first, my girls are right now two of the happiest babies I know!  Just because they are crying doesn't mean you are torturing them or scarring them for life.

Good luck!

hollyoid7

I always would just feed one and then the other. I was never good at feeding them at the same time. I had them on the same schedule. At night if you woke up to feed I would feed him and then wake his brother up after I was done and feed him. Sometimes they just have to cry.?

Polofsky

I feed concurrently, when one wakes up I wake the other up and I put them both in boppies on either side of me or in front of me, we have to burp throughout the feeding too so sometimes I will prop the bottle up on a blanket on the chest of  the one still feeding while I burp the other...and sometimes one just has to scream for about 60 seconds.

TheNextWest

Polofsky:

I feed concurrently, when one wakes up I wake the other up and I put them both in boppies on either side of me or in front of me, we have to burp throughout the feeding too so sometimes I will prop the bottle up on a blanket on the chest of  the one still feeding while I burp the other...and sometimes one just has to scream for about 60 seconds.

This is what I did too. It's not that bad! You get used to it