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Multiples
shaunah816
member
How to manage the guilt (BF and more)
shaunah816
member
in Multiples
Hi ladies,
I'm loving being a MoM, but I'm realizing how much pressure I'm putting on myself in some aspects of caring for twins. Any advice you have on the matter would be so appreciated.
In a nutshell, I'm forever feeling like I'm not giving my 5.5 week old boys enough love and attention. I've been breastfeeding, pumping, and supplementing with formula and have been since day 3 in the hospital (my milk hadn't come in yet, and the hospital staff didn't want to see them lose anymore than 10% of their birth weights). I went into this with an open mind about breastfeeding, since I knew it was so hard for a MoM to EBF, but I wanted to give it my best shot. Since day one I've loved breastfeeding so much more than I expected, and I love bonding with my little guys that way and giving them the best possible nutrition I could. Will has always been an absolutely perfect latcher and all around piece of cake to nurse. Andrew has a high palette, according to the LCs, and has always struggled to latch (which means he winds up hurting me and/or I don't "enjoy" bf-ing him as much. I use a nipple shield which makes a huge difference, but it still takes longer to latch him and he often doesn't stay on the breast as long). I make the effort to breastfeed both at each feeding and then supplement with formula, but lately that's been going downhill. A lot of times I wind up nursing Will because he's so easy, and then formula feeding Andrew. I pump twice per day and give Andrew that milk, since he doesn't wind up nursing as much, and has the more sensitive stomach of the two (he's on Alimentum for formula feeds). It makes me happy to give him my pumped milk, and I'd like to find the time and energy to increase my pump sessions both to boost my supply and use the pumped milk for supplements instead of formula. This is a long way of saying that the guilt about breastfeeding is starting to eat away at me. I feel like I'm "choosing" to BF Will instead of Andrew because it's less work. I obviously love them both the same (so much my heart just wants to break apart every time I look at them), but I feel like I'm not doing enough to BF as much as possible. I keep telling myself I should be pumping more (after every feeding, as my LC told me in the beginning), and BFing both babies at every feed (we FF overnight to give me a break, and I pump once overnight while my DH bottle feeds), and on and on.
Combine this with my guilt over never being able to give the babies one-on-one attention (even when one is sleeping and I can focus on the other, I'm never "there" 100% because I'm keeping an eye on both of them), and feeling like I don't hold them enough (since I can't hold both at once all day), and wondering if I hold one baby more than the other depending on the day, the list goes on and on. Emotionally I've been holding up pretty well, I think, but I'm starting to feel myself slipping a bit as my guilt levels are creeping up and up every day.
All of us MoMs struggle with these issues, I'm thinking, so I'm reaching out for some reassurance and/or advice, I suppose.
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Re: How to manage the guilt (BF and more)
Oh my goodness yes. I went through so many of the same feelings. I was like you, went into BFing with an open mind, loved it more than I thought, wanted to give it my best shot so I would never look back and think "if only", but struggled the whole time. Both girls had bad latches and lost a lot of weight the first week. And the idea of using any possible spare moment to pump rather than sleep- ugh.
A few things: 1. These first few months are HARD. And nobody, nobody else knows what it's like except MoMs. 2. One thing that I only recently realized that I wish someone had reminded me of when I was faced with the prospect of giving up BFing: the BM/formula thing is only one year (well, sometimes BFing goes longer but you know). Now that my girls are 10 months and I am starting to think about the transition to WCM, I feel a little stupid for the amount of agony I put myself through. 3. I am so so glad that I did everything I could to BF. There is no way anyone, most importantly me, can think that there was anything else I could have done to make it work. And I am proud that I was able to go 3 months.
Did I mention that these first few months are HARD? You're not alone. And your babies are both going to love you to pieces and they will love their brother too. They can tell how much you love them- you don't have to be holding them all the time for them to know that (even when the never-ending crying makes it seem like they have no idea).
Oh please, oh please don't feel guilty. You are doing a great job! You are working so hard to give your boys the nutrition they need, don't be so hard on yourself.
Spare a thought for those of us who tried in vain to EBF their little ones and failed
I feel guilty about failing every single day, and my girls are almost 7 months old now. They're thriving, but still.
Just keep doing what you're doing and know that you are a great mom.
I've been pretty much in the exact same place and the guilt really sucks. It wasn't so much BFing one more than the other, but the overall needing to BF and pump at every feeding. There was no way I could realistically do it and I was beating myself up over it. At some point, I decided I would be okay with doing what I could and if I had to supplement with formula, so be it. They wound up with about half BM and half formula from the beginning but that's what worked. When they were little, I think I BFed both about equally, but when DDs were several months old, I had one I wound up BFing more. She was smaller and not eating as much, so I felt that she needed it more. And it all worked out. You have to realize that you have two individuals you're dealing with with two sets of needs. Sometimes it may not seem that you are treating them equally, but that's the way of life with twins.
BTW, my girls both survived and don't seem to hold anything against me. :-) Hang in there! I'm sending you lots of ((((hugs)))) since I know how tough it is!
***Twin fraternal girls born at 35w6d in 12/2008***
Know that in six weeks the reverse will be true and the other twin will need you more, or will be easier to deal with than the other. And six weeks later it will reverse again. Don't feel guilty about this, they'll even it out one way or another.
You're not far from turning the corner. Keep holding on and things will keep getting better and better!
If you're enjoying BFing and it's important to you then I would keep meeting with LCs to see if you can get both of them nursing exclusively. Cutting out pumping (eventually) will save you a ton of time and will likely make the experience more enjoyable overall. I have a friend with twins who are a little younger then mine and they are EBF but the first 2-3 months were really, really hard for her because she was nursing both of them, then feeding them pumped BM, then pumping (and she has a 3 year old!). She kept meeting with a lactation consultant and now she doesn't pump at all anymore and she said it's so much easier (although that also means she's the only one who can do MOTN feedings). So if that's your ultimate goal then what I would personally do is give myself a "deadline" - maybe 10-12 weeks? - and see if at that point there is a significant improvement in how they're both nursing and then decide at that point what to do going forward. I always found that setting up goals based on weeks made it easier because then I could say "only two more weeks and then we'll change to x" or something like that.
My girls never latched well and even by 8 weeks were only getting about an ounce after nursing for 20 minutes. I stopped trying to nurse around 8 weeks and stopped pumping at 12 weeks. Honestly, I have mixed feelings on it - some days (even still) I feel really guilty that I stopped pumping/nursing, but when I stopped I was also relieved and a little angry at myself that I didn't stop sooner because I had SO much extra time to spend with the girls when nursing/pumping was taken out of the equation.
Good luck!
I haven't read all the replies yet but just wanted to write a quick response. I know how you feel! I haven't decided if it's worse when they cry at the same time or cry one after the other, because even when one is quiet, you're tending to the crying one...neither one gets what they deserve...today was a bad day for me also.
I have one good eater and one not so good, so I understand that also. I also am still in a lot of pain on the left side whenever I nurse, so that part's not enjoyable for me at all. I originally thought I'd go a year BFing but that seems like a long, long time. I try not to think about it too much.
I don't have advice for you, just commiseration! I really feel like I was handling it ok but today I just hit a wall. My mom and sister help but they also take away the happy baby and let me deal with the whiny one, which makes me feel like I never get to spend happy time with the babies. I hear that it gets better. For our (all new MoMs) sake, I hope it does, and soon! Good luck to you!
Thank you all so much for your kind replies. I haven't had a chance to come back and reply before now (these babies are time consuming!), but I've been reading the replies and they've brought me great confort. I've had a few good BF days in a row (I got Andrew to nurse without the nipple shield once, and I've been successfully tandem nursing again for a couple days) and have been pumping slightly more milk, so that's been helping my mental health in feeling like I'm doing my best. Will, who's the skinnier baby, has been looking a bit fuller faced lately, so I can tell that they're getting big and healthy, and that's all that really matters.
This MoM thing is tough, but I love these guys so much. Thanks for reminding me that we're all in this together and that it does get easier