Breastfeeding twins

[alanasmum]

Hi mums
I haven't posted here since the birth of our twins almost a month ago - have been busy, busy, busy!

They were born at 36w, 3d at 2.1kg each and spent a couple of weeks in special care. They are home now and are doing really well. Life has certainly changed going from 1 to 3 children but it's wonderful and I'm loving having 2 newborns to cuddle! :cloud9:

At the moment I am still trying to establish breastfeeding with the twins. They are having 2 breastfeeds a day each with top-up, EBM and a small amount of formula. One twin is attaching extremely well but the other seems to prefer the bottle. I'm guessing with persistence I will eventually be able to exclusively breastfeed both but I suspect it will take at least another month until they are both strong enough and are feeding well from me. We have had a lactation consultant come in and she was absolutely fantastic and has helped us a lot.

So, I guess I just wanted to ask any mums who have been able to breastfeed their twins what their breastfeeding journey was like... and if there are any mums who found themselves in a similar situation to us if you could share your experience that would be great. :)

[SuperGranny]

hi alanasmum, congrats, and well done with the journey so far. I bf my girls for nine months. Im glad to answer questions or to just share experiences. I was never able to express, and I never used a bottle for anything. I wonder with your bub who is prefering the bottle, ? are you giving one bub one side all the time,?? I mean eg, baby x on the right breast, baby y on the left ?? I found I had much less milk from one side then the other. I ended up having to swap babies around each day. I always tandem fed, if one wanted feeding they both got fed, and they mostly fed three hourly. (about 8 to 9 feeds a day) They didnt cut out any bf until they were four months old, and by then they were also having solids, baby cereal, or custards, atleast once or even twice a day. Im glad you are getting good advice from the lc, best wishes, Marie.

[Nomsie]

Hi there :)

Congrats on your twinnies and well done on bf'ing!

You may find that one prefers the bottle because it is much easier to get the milk from. I don't know if your LC has filled you in on the information, but continuing to use formula whilst you are trying to establish your supply may jeopardise all your hard work.

My milk took over a week to come in (twins born via elec c/s at 37+3), and the boys were comped a few times with formula whilst still in the hospital. Once we were home though (on day 5) it was boobie all the way. My LC advised that I feed 3 hourly night and day to establish supply.

And once the supply came in, did it REALLY come in. I remember waking up one morning and my boobs were just so heavy and tight- I needed to feed then and there. I then struggled with issues of oversupply- I could have easily of fed 3 or even 4 babies and not have any of them go without. That of course caused issues of it's own, none of which I will go into here.

Needless to say, a lot of women choose to exclusively bf their twins- some do it at the same time, like I did in the beginning, and a lot do it one at a time. I tend to alter in between, depending on the boys, but certainly in the beginning when everything was strictly every 3 hours, it was so much easier doing them together.

The boys are nearly 6 months, and in the beginning I set myself that 6 month target to evaluate our feeding and then decide whether I would continue from there on in. Needless to say, I don't even need to think about it- it is so convenient not to do the whole bottle thing, and I can't even imagine the money that we would spend on formula! So my next target I think will be 10 months, hopefully the boys will be taking less amount of milk and more solids, as at the moment they are still only milkies, and still doing 3 hourly almost all the time! (My LC was horrified when I told her they were still doing that at 2 months, I would hate to hear what she thinks now at 6 months lol!)

So, that is my little waffle, I hope I have helped a little bit- I wasn't quite sure what you were looking for... :flowerz: