Breastfeeding Twins Tips
Not breastfeeding twins? Just move on…nothing to see here.
Tips for Breastfeeding Twins
The most important thing to remember is that you CAN do this. It won’t be easy and you will probably want to slap all those people who go “Oh, breastfeeding is soooooo easy,” but it is possible and, once established, worth it.
- Buy Mothering Multiples. That is the absolute best resource on nursing twins (or more).
- Get the foam EZ-2-Nurse Twins pillow. Tandem nursing has never really worked for me, but lots of twin mothers swear it makes life easier. Also know that if you never do tandem nurse you can still do this.
- Expect that it is going to hurt at first, even if everything goes well, and stock up on Soothies and Lansinoh.
- You will probably need to pump. Don’t screw around and just go rent a good, hospital grade pump. I liked the Medela Symphony, which was available for rental at Babies R Us.
- Enlist the help of a lactation consultant BEFORE you give birth, but make sure she has experience with twins.
- Don’t do anything other than nurse. Have someone else bring you the babies and take the babies away when you are done. Have someone else change and dress the babies. Have someone else clean the house and prepare the food and do the dishes. Your only job should be nursing; don’t underestimate how tired it will leave you at first.
- Make sure that your partner is on board; someone has to do all that cleaning and cooking and non-nursing baby care.
- KellyMom is a GREAT breastfeeding resource. Better Make it a Double has a great collection of “been there done that” stories.
- Set small goals. Make it one more day; then try for 6 weeks. At 6 weeks you may feel like you can make it to 3 months. At 3 months you’ll probably never want to stop.
- Cut yourself some slack if you have to supplement. Nursing twins doesn’t have to be an all or nothing situation. Combine nursing, pumping and formula in whatever works for you on that day. At 1 month my babies were at about 50% breast milk; by 2 months it was up to about 70%; now, at 4 1/2 months it is about 90%.
Stumble it!
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January 3rd, 2007 21:15
Stacie:
After successfully breastfeeding my twins for over a year (they’re almost 4 y.o. now!), I am always so excited to see other twin moms sticking it out and nursing their multiples. It is just too cool to nurse your baby, and I’m always so sad to hear how many moms of twins don’t even bother trying. Anyway, congratulations, and kudos, and keep it up!
April 16th, 2007 01:07
You said everything I would have said. This is an excellent list!
November 24th, 2007 16:50
So, you’re saying people have to buy a book to breastfeed?! And special pillows?! Women all over the world have managed without those, so why add in an additional expense?
Just what exactly is the “grand plan” for when paternity leave is up? And before you answer, consider that not everyone has friends/family that are available and/or helpful or trustworthy.
November 27th, 2007 19:47
Dan — it can be very difficult to position two infants on the breast at the same time without pillow support. The EX-2-Nurse pillow didn’t work for me but I gave it to someone who found it very helpful. Some people make it work with boppys or just by using regular pillows propped around themselves. I didn’t tandem nurse until about 9 months which made life more difficult for me but I just couldn’t get the coordination down until the babies could help out some.
As for what to do when paternity leave is up, do you mean when the nursing mother has to go back to work or when the father has to go back to work? Because my husband went back to work after two weeks and I struggled through and made it work. I don’t actually know of anyone where both parents were able to stay home for any duration of time. It isn’t actually easier to formula feed. In fact, if you are blessed with twins (or even one baby) that latches without an issue and you don’t have to pump it is much easier to breastfeed because you don’t have to deal with formula preparation and bottle washing.
November 28th, 2007 02:24
I am currently nursing twins and they are 9 months old now. Most definitely talk to a lactation consultant before you deliver, ask to see one every single day you are in the hospital, see your L.C. the week after you get home from the hospital to make sure everything is working well and to see if you need to make any adjustments. You can get by on supporting the babies with regular pillows but the EZ to Nurse pillow worked great for me. Usually my husband or the grandparents were able to help me position the babies in the early weeks but then after reading a great description in the book Twinspiration, I was able to get both babies on the pillow myself to tandem nurse. Kellymom.com was heaven sent, particularly when I found a couple of videos that clearly showed how to get a baby, especially a small baby, to latch properly. Just “putting them on” meant pain for me. I could get through it, but when you don’t have to have pain, why put up with it? Once I was better able to help the babies latch properly, the pain went out the window (98% of the time) and breastfeeding became SOOO much easier.
November 28th, 2007 03:11
I still think this is a great list. I hope you can help twin moms after you, because as you said, it’s not so very natural!
I posted about my own experiences breastfeeding twins (almost at 15 months now) here:
http://sarahandjordanll.blogspot.com/2007/09/year-of-breastfeeding-twins.html
It’s less guide and more just compilation of my experiences.
With my low birth weight preemies, perhaps the best and most basic advice I got was from a friend who said, it gets easier when their mouths are bigger. It sounds so obvious, but no book or website or LC ever said it. The whole, if it hurts, the latch isn’t right, I don’t think it’s true when the baby’s 4 pounds. We had pre/post weights done and my son was taking more than 3 ounces per feed but boy did it hurt!
The nursing mother’s companion had a good section on twin nursing that I referred to often.
Realize that twins are individuals and they may reach goals at different points. My son stopped needing bottles of pumped milk before my daughter,and stopped needing the nipple shield first. I didn’t expect that, but we went with it.
It’s okay to hate (perhaps too strong a word?) your other new mom friends with only one baby, who don’t need to pump and can like, leave the house now and then. I remember I had to plan my whole day around a new mother group so I could go for 1 hour between nursing (with a shield) and pumping and bottle feeding pumped milk. And other women would just sit their calmly with their babies, pull out a boob and start nursing as needed. Boy was I jealous. But in the end it worked out for me, and you can do all sorts of cool tandem nursing tricks in front of the same mommy group once you get the hang of it.
Just know it gets better. It gets so, so, much better and for me, it was worth all the hardship in the beginning.
November 28th, 2007 09:24
My best advice is to make sure everyone who is going to be around you in the crucial hours/days/weeks after you’ve given birth are completely on board and supportive of your decision to breastfeed. You are so fragile and easily swayed when you’re holding a tiny dependent baby, no matter how you felt beforehand. I had more than one nurse try to pressure me into formula feeding by suggesting that I was starving my baby (my daughter only because my son had to go right to NICU with low blood sugar and got formula right away-oddly enough he was my breastfeeding champ). I ended up giving formula in the hospital which could have undermined the whole thing but my husband and family were so supportive that I was able to get both kids off the formula and onto the breast by 1 month old and at almost 14 months we’re still going strong. It does take a lot of determination and stubbornness in the beginning (luckily I had both) but it also takes your husband not suggesting you “just give a bottle” at the first sign that things aren’t going well. There is a learning curve and you need the people around you to support you, not suggest an easy fix. I remember crying one night because my daughter wouldn’t stay latched, it hurt, and of course I was exhausted, and I yelled at my husband to “just get me a stupid bottle” and although he looked frightened he stayed strong and said “No, you can do it just calm down and keep at it”. And he stayed there with me while I kept trying. Those are the moments that kept me on track. I look back and I am so proud of myself for sticking with it. Now, how to deal with all of the “so, you’re STILL breastfeeding…” comments.
November 28th, 2007 11:56
Sheer will power. That was the only thing that got me through. Since ny twins were so premature, I had to pump for the first two months, and then try to nurse them with the nipple shield. It wasn’t until they were four months old that they really, truly got the hang of it. I still can’t believe I stuck with it.
I also gave myself permission to supplement without feeling guilty. It wasn’t my original plan, but my babies are very healthy.
Sadly, I have recently weaned. I wasn’t ready to do it…the babies are just about 9 months old, but they literally began refusing my breast. Every time I tried to nurse them, they would arch their backs and cry. I’m sure there was something I could have done to force them to nurse, but my supply was really starting to dwindle, and the notion of building my supply back up as I had done in those early months was just too daunting. I am disappointed, but I am also reminding that myself that I would have been disappointed WHENEVER they stopped nursing. AND I’m reminding myself that I nursed twins for 8 1/2 months! That’s pretty good!
November 28th, 2007 12:18
What I found most helpful was finding a twin breastfeeding board (twinstuff). They encouraged me to keep going when I wanted to quit, but aslo let me know it would be ok if I stopped and that I had done great so far. I managed to keep going, only supplementing for the first week with formula (milk took 10 days to come in) and nursed them until they self-weaned at a year. I think they actually would have weaned even earlier if I hadn’t kept offering. At a year I stopped offering though.
Encouragment was definitely key for me.
November 28th, 2007 16:34
I can only add - any twin mum who breastfeeds rocks -you said everything I would have.
Others added what i thought too -but joining a twin club/mothers group/playgroup and speaking personally to other mums is very beneficial.
Very inspiring comments from mums here.
November 29th, 2007 12:24
Understand how milk production is tied to the rest of your body. Don’t assume it’s only supply/demand, as many would have you believe. I had plenty of demand, but no supply. My dr. neglected to tell me that the extreme blood loss and subsequent anemia I suffered would DRASTICALLY impact my breastmilk production.
Milk production is a whole body concept — keep eating, keep hydrated, and keep as positive as possible. And allow yourself to live guilt free no matter how long you can nurse. I only went 5 1/2 months and I still have trouble with the guilt.
November 30th, 2007 15:35
After 5 months I feel like I can finally comment on this
My main point is make sure you have support. I remember telling my husband while I was still pregnant that no matter what I said, I wanted to breast feed the girls for a year.
They were born 6 weeks early and only 4 pounds and to say that it hurt is the understatement of the year. Like Eva, we had the nipple shields and the poor latching and I read all the books and went to the lacation lady and silently cursed friends with only one baby…
It took until they were almost 4 months old for the girls to figure out what the hell they were supposed to be doing on the boob and now I am working part-time again and pumping. My biggest problem now is just relaxing enough to keep supply up. I also think that my babies have a bit of the “goldfish” problem in that they will eat whatever’s in a bottle even if it’s more than they’d take on the breast. This leaves me a little behind in pumped supply, but that brings me to the other thing that saved my sanity:
Sometimes you have to supplement. This does not make you a bad mother or a horrible fiend. They won’t die from drinking a few ounces of formula once in a while. If you need to use it for a few days or even just an ounce or two to supplement what you’ve got, you are not causing irreparable damage to your children. I don’t know why, but this is the hardest thing for me to let go of.
oh and one more thing. you will figure out what works for you. you know your body and your babies better than anyone else, so why would you listen to anyone else? Chloe had a hard time latching and the lacation lady and the nurses all told me she was ‘rejecting’ the breast b/c of a milk allergy. I quit dairy and my supply quit as well. I started drinking milk again, supply came back up and Chloe and I just took our time to make sure she wasn’t too starved at the beginning of a feeding. She has no fedding problems now. as a matter of fact she outweighs her sister and this morning at 5am she was nursing in bed, in the dark, before I could even fully roll over or get situated
my last tip is find some twin moms who’ve done it. You guys have been my inspiration and role models. Thanks!
December 3rd, 2007 18:30
1) On pillows: I took my Anna Double Nursing Pillow everywhere for the first several months. It allowed me to save time by doing tandem feedings, even while on the road by pulling the van over and climbing in the back seat for a quick top-up.
2) On support: Call anyone and everyone you ever knew! You’d be surprised how many people will come and burp a baby if you just ask… and not just family. As a former teacher I knew many retired baby boomers and called them all… not ONE person declined to come over and help me out.
I nursed my twins and later my singleton for 27 months each. I also credit a good lactation consultant who had me tandem nursing before we left the hospital. I was also blessed to have both grandmothers helping out for months.
December 3rd, 2007 20:28
Don’t get sucked into the ‘it’s so natural, all you have to do is put the baby to the breast’ mentality. Yes, it is natural, but often not easy, and it’s a learned skill for both mom and baby. In cultures where breastfeeding is the norm, there is a ton of wisdom and experience passed on about it. We have books and web sites like the ones you mentioned, and lactation consultants that fill this function. Use them.