If you followed the Barbara Luke book . . .

cmw&tdm

How did you eat that much food? 

My acupuncturist (who had identical twin boys - born 6.5 lbs each at 37 wks and went home a day after they were born) recommended it very very very highly.  I would love for my twins to end up as hearty as hers, so of course I'm going to follow what she tells me to.  I just tried to start yesterday and I swear I'm eating tons, but it's only meeting maybe 1/4 of the requirements.  I'm queasy most of the time, and it's really hard to eat anything, especially anything healthy. 

 Does anyone have any advice for me? 

Thank you!!

cands

I think that Dr. Luke makes several points that are critical to a healthy twin pregnancy: 1) you need to gain a lot of weight, 2) you need to eat a lot 3) A lot of what you eat should be protein, 4) you need to drink a lot of water.  But I think the details and specifics are hard for just about everyone to follow.  I followed the general principles, but not the specifics. 

copwife08

supplement some of the calorie intake with boost or ensure shakes. You can mix them with whole milk or even use them inplace of milk in a milk shake to make them taste better (I like the strawberry ones and drink them as my between meal snack). They are not as filling as a meal but full of calories and other good stuff. There is a post below about weight gain from yesterday (I think) check that out as well.

weemodin

well, after the first 12 weeks, I was friggin' STARVING all the time.  That helped

At first I drank a lot of boost, etc. 

leslie13510

During the first tri there was no way I got even close to the recommendations most days.  Even with the nutritional drinks.  Now that the m/s has mostly passed I am starving all the time so it's a lot easier.  I still don't follow it to the letter, but like pp said I try to follow the main principles. 

lutzcowgirlie

I also had big babies (7.6 and 7.8 lbs at 37w 5d). I didn't follow her recipes or her diet plan to the letter, but like a pp said, I adhered to the basic ideas of LOTS to eat, plenty of protein, and tons and tons of water.

 

I lost weight up until 17 weeks because of severe morning sickness, but still managed to gain 60+ lbs and have those giant babies. Just eat all day, even if you aren't "hungry". Oh, and those Boost drinks are good to add in, or Carnation Instant Breakfast, or milkshakes. Sometimes it's nice to drink your calories

SCOOTER

Not to be a Debbie Downer, I followed her guidelines, drank protein shakes twice a day and still ended up with 31 week babies.  It's a good idea, she gives lots of info to you that many pregnancy books won't go into but it is not THE only solution to growing big full term babies.  The nutritionist in the hospital used it for her reference for eating requirements though. 

RobynK

The first trimester was SO hard for me.  I remember DH getting mad when I couldn't eat enough.  Then I discovered McD's cheeseburgers and real ice cream 

Don't be hard on yourself in the first trimester -- just eat whatever you can and eventually you will get your appetite back.

lajolla09.30.06

I followed her recommendations and still had slightly early (34 week) babies.  There is NO guarantee with anything when twins are involved...it's a big complicated mess of a pregnancy.  BUT I do think that following her advice did a couple of things:

1. Helped me to gain enough weight that even though my babies were early they really weren't that small (close to 5 pounds)

2. Helped me realize that something wasn't right (lots of preterm contractions) and get myself into the doctor even though I felt silly about it.  This was the big one because if I hadn't mentioned the contractions I never would have gotten extra cervical length checks and terbutaline/bedrest at 26 weeks.  Without that I think I would have delivered WAY earlier.

Read the nutrition stuff but also please do yourself a favor and read the part about warning signs of preterm labor, I really think that helped me keep the babies in longer AND get to the hospital in time to have the steroid shots once labor became unavoidable.  Also the one part of the book I never read (I was sure it wouldn't apply to me) was the part about the NICU.  Once they were in there and I was a mess, I really wished I'd read about it earlier so I wouldn't be so shocked/overwhelmed.

macchiatto

I've been tracking (just started recently) how many servings a day I get of each category versus how many she recommends. I generally do hit it about right for eggs (2/day), meat (3/day), fats/oils/nuts (6/day) and vegetables (4/day) but come up short with the others. LIke I might get 6-8 servings of grain rather than the full 10, 5-6 of dairy rather than 8, 3-5 servings of fruit rather than 7. But for me that's close enough. And honestly if I was eating the full amounts I would be gaining weight faster than even she recommends! (Currently I'm up 33 lbs at 26w2d. And my OB apparently isn't familiar with Dr. Luke's research because he hinted today that I "don't really need to be gaining that much weight." )