Getting Started nursing 7 day old twins

Hi everyone,

My twins come home from the nicu tomorrow and I'm really getting nervous about nighttime nursing. My husband goes back to work Tuesday and has a semi-dangerous job that needs 100% of his attention and I don't want him to be sleep deprived. It's just too dangerous for him.

How can I do nighttime nursing myself? I had both babies to the breast in the nicu yesterday with the help of a lactation consultant but it was really hard. I won't be able to do it myself right off the bat.

Any advice of how to feed them on the same schedule at night? The same schedule is important to me so I can get some sleep. Should I nurse one and bottle feed the other? Or should I pump and bottle feed both overnight?

During the day I'll have lots of help. Both my sister and my MIL will be here for the next two weeks and them my sister will stay thru the end of the month. It's just this nighttime feedings I'm nervous about.

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks!

 

It is very hard to get them to tandem nurse by yourself when they are so young and new nursers. The lactation specialist at the hosp I delivered at said not even to try for a month so that they could become good nursers first. I only tandem when my DH is here to help and even then it is hard because one baby is hard to wake. So what we have began to do is about 15 min prior to the next feed I unswaddle and start to rouse one baby. Then I take him to breast and unswaddle the other. By the time one is done nursing the other is up and ready. My smaller baby then has a bottle after I am done with the other baby. My DH was gone all day today for the first time and this was the only way I could do it. It only adds about 30 min to the feed time and I my babies latch and nurse better when I can give them the attention. I do plan to tandem them once they are bigger. They were born at 35 and 3 and came straight home 2 days later so we never had a real hospital routine. Good luck! If there is another way to do this I am anxious to learn also, but this is what is working so far for us!

 

I didn't tandem at all until mine were about 3 months old. Newborns are just WAY too floppy. I just nursed one, swaddled them back up, then woke the second and nursed them. I still got sleep in between nursing sessions and I also dozed a bit while babies were latched on. I think pumping at night would be more work/less sleep for you and bottles at night will tank your supply. Even when I got comfortable with tandem feeding I usually chose to feed one at a time at night because I felt like they stayed sleepier and easier to settle when I wasn't messing with positioning them on the giant nursing pillow. Good luck and happy homecoming!

 

I would definitely just nurse one at a time. Nurse whoever wakes up first, then get that one settled back down and nurse baby #2. Of course sometimes baby #2 wakes up at the same time or while you are nursing #1. In those cases I would have baby #2 beside me (sitting on the bed nursing #1) in a boppy pillow so that I could pacify him with my pinky or a pacifier. I agree with the pp that this will get you more sleep than pumping and dealing with bottles! That is a whole other dimension added to night time nursing as you'd have to have a set time to get up and nurse before babies woke up and then there is bottle prep, washing, reheating, etc.

In a few months your babies will wake less at night, be WAY better/faster nursers, and you may even be able to tandem nurse them on your own. I didn't really get the hang of that until they were over six months old, and even now it's just not my favourite way to nurse so I don't do it often. My babies prefer the one on one and they nurse better and faster that way, and I love(d) the snuggle time even when it was taking away some moments of sleep.

 

I also didn't start tandum nursing until my twins were older. One of my newborns need both of my hands to get and stay latched.
Since this will only be a short time in your lifes and from what you said about your DH's job. I would suggest you sleep in the same room with the babies and your DH sleeps somewhere else. Just for the time being.

 

I had the exact same situation - DH needs his sleep for his job so he slept in the spare room and I had the kids in a crib in our room. When they first came home from the hospital I fed them one after the other. Unfortunately most nights they woke up at the same time so I would feed one and have the other beside me sucking on a soother until I was done. Put the first one in the crib and feed the other, until one night I decided to try tandem and since then they are fed at the same time.

Good luck and congrats on bringing them home!!!!

 

I think I'd practice tandeming during the day by myself (like just once a day at first) then once that went well try it at night as they get bigger/stronger. Maybe your family could do 1 night a week for a while to help you out, instead of during the day.

 

Thanks for all of the suggestions. Every time I put the babies to breast one at a time, they nurse for a long time and then take a bottle. For example, one nursed for 30 min on each side today and then drank 45ml from a bottle. It just doesn't seem like I have time to nurse both every time it's feeding time since they eat every 3 hours.

Should I limit them to 15 min each on the breast and then give a bottle? I'm burning through my excess breastmilk pretty fast by giving breastmilk bottles and pumping.

Help!

 

Why are you giving them a bottle afterwards? If they are staying on for 30 min then you shouldn't need a bottle afterward. Babies have a natural need to suck so if you stick a bottle in their mouth they will drink some just because it is there. Doing that is a slippery slope to kill your supply, though, because it is easier from a bottle than from the breast. I would also stop doing both sides with a baby. Nurse one on one side, then switch and nurse the other on the other side. You could even assign a baby a side and then switch the next day.

As for the 30 min on the breast, are they actively nursing the whole time or are they falling asleep/using you as a pacifier? I know it feels like they are always at the breast right now, but a lot of that is their way of instinctively telling your body to produce. Once they get the hang of it, their nursing time will decrease. By a month old, mine were getting what they needed in 15-20 min and by 2 months they could do it in 8-10. Your supply will also do better if you don't try to stick to an every 3 hour schedule. Feed them on demand.

It seems daunting right now but this is a very brief time in your babies' lives. Just set yourself up in a comfy chair/couch with water, snacks and some good movies/trashy TV and just nurse, nurse, nurse. It's natures way of making you slow down and heal after delivery.

 

My smaller baby is hard to wake and only stays on for 5 min... 10-12 if I am lucky, so he does get a bottle after most feeds (pumped BM) Should I stop that? I pump after most day feeds and every other night feed so I can sleep. My other baby nurses well and at least 10 min. I feed at least every 3 hours but will nurse if they wake up and want to eat. Anything else I could do to ensure smaller baby eats enough with out a bottle to supplement? They were born at 35 and 3 but Dr said they tested like 36 weekers which is most accurate to what I thought I was.

 

I'm waking them to feed them every 3 hours per the neonatologist in the nicu. The regular pediatrician says if they keep gaining nicely we can start a feed on demand schedule after their next appt (next week Thursday).

 

Momof6: I think that as long as at least one of them is nursing actively you are fine giving the bottle to your pipsqueak. Once he starts staying awake longer I would try to slowly wean off the bottles.

Jen: by on demand I mean that you could cluster feed them or feed every 2 if they act hungry (smacking lips, chewing hands, looking around). Sometimes babies miss that hungry stage and fall back to sleep if you specifically time to wait 3 hours.

 

I haven't had my twins yet but do plan on BF'ing. I am so worried after reading responses of not being able to tandem feed until they are a bit older (few months). So if you do feed 1 at a time, how the heck do you get ANY sleep at night?? LOL!!!
As by the time you feed one, burp him/her, get them back to sleep...then feed the other and do the same... isn't the first baby awake again and needing to feed????

 

You can tandem almost from the beginning. We started from Day 3 and did it exclusively starting Day 5. Her situation is different as she doesn't have any help at all in the night. My DH was almost a LC by the time we got them going- he latched each baby on every time for 2 weeks- I kid you not. I'm not mechanically inclined and he had to visually show me with his hand the motion of rolling my breast into their mouthes.

In the very beginning it went like this: "Wah!"

Me: "Ben, the baby is crying". Louder: "BEN. The baby is crying".

I'd get up and get the EZ 2 Nurse on, make sure I had a remote, book, blanket, snack, glass of water, did not have to pee. You do NOT want to have to get up when you've got 2 babies actively nursing. :acute:

He'd get up and change both boys.

We'd put our 'easier' baby, Orion, on first as he loved to nurse and we could get him going quickly.

We'd then put Sebastian, a difficult baby on. Hopefully by this time my milk was letting down as my son was very lazy and did not want to work for it.

Ben would go back to sleep; I'd nurse them until they were done. If I couldn't wake Ben up, I'd start chucking remotes and stuff at him. ardon:

Sleep for 45 minutes and then up again.

 

I did all the night nursing sessions on my own and hardly ever tandemed. For me, I just had a hard time getting the hang of it. I felt like they learned better how to nurse/latch by doing them separately. Also, I wouldn't really have them go for more than 30 minutes at night unless they were crying for it! They were pretty sleepy at the beginning (they were 35 weeks, 0 days) and I had to wake them every 3 hours to feed them. I would wake, change, and feed one, and then wrapped them up and then wake, change and feed the other and then wrap them up and then catch about an hour or so of sleep and start over. It took a little longer but it was easier mentally because I could concentrate on one at a time. Also, since they were still preemies I found they went right back to sleep pretty easily. That got a little trickier when they got older and woke on their own. I would almost always wake the other immediately after though so they could stay on the same schedule. As for supplementing, our nicu wanted us to put some extra calories into a bottle of breastmilk especially for one of our little pipsqueaks. I tended to do this during a couple of daytime feeds when I had help and then I could just do my nursing routine at night. (Nursing at night is hard, but pumping at night is just unbearable to me!!!) By about 2 weeks old we didn't have to do that anymore and we just went to full-time nursing. At this point, they were waking to eat more often and I was feeding them more than every 3 hours, sometime more like every 2 hours during the day and let them try to go every 3 at night. It is definitely doable. It's tough but you can do it. I would always tape all my shows so I could watch them during the night (it made it a little easier to get up) and I would always have some snacks handy or even a sandwich at like 3 am! Before you know it, they will go a little longer for you at night and then it will get easier.
Shannon

 

Learn to nurse lying down I'd nurse and doze with one baby and then when the other woke up, I'd switch the babies and nurse and doze with the other baby. I never woke the other twin. What if he wanted to sleep through the night?

Tandem was tricky to learn at first. The EZ to Nurse Twins pillow is great. Fill the "gap" between your body and the pillow with receiving blankets or cloth diapers so it supports the small heads more.