Supply / supplementing help

I need some help figuring out this breast feeding thing. Our twins (boy Adrian and girl Cecilia) are 17 days old today. In the hospital, she was really losing weight so they had us start supplementing almost right away with donated breastmilk, for both of them. He's slightly past his birthweight now and she should be back to birthweight in a few days, I think. We're still supplementing and have been blessed with more donated breastmilk, but I'm not sure how to tell when we can stop supplementing, when my supply is enough for them. Shoud we just start weaning them off now that they're almost both to birthweight? Have others supplemented and what have you done? Or did you not supplement and how did you know if you had enough?

Thanks so much for your help! This really feels overwhelming at times.

 

How are you currently supplementing? After each feed or are you replacing complete feeds? If you're supplementing quite a bit, I think it's best to wean from supplementing slowly so that your supply will increase as the babies demand more from you. On the other hand, if you're only supplementing a little bit & everything else about nursing is going well (ie good latches, strong sucks, etc) you could try dropping the supplements cold turkey & doing a nursing marathon (try to spend 24-48 hours just hanging out in bed, skin to skin with your babes letting them nurse on demand as much as they want. You'll want some support to help take care of everything else).

These early days/weeks can definitely be overwhelming. I used to like to think of it as an investment. I was putting in a lot of time & effort in the beginning to enjoy the benefits down the road. Give yourself & your babies lots of grace - you're all just learning each other right now & that's anything but a straightforward process. :hug:

 

I'm doing SNS at the breast with each feeding, 1 ounce per baby. The latches are pretty good but my girl is not the best sucker. I have to work almost nonstop to remind her to keep going, even with the SNS. I'm thinking of cutting back to half an ounce supplementing per baby until the donated milk runs out in a few days. Thoughts?

And thanks so much for the encouragement. I like the idea of "investing."

 

Yay for SNS & donated milk!

I think that sounds like a good approach. Maybe after a couple of days at 1/2 ounce you could pick a couple of feeds to not supplement at all while still offering 1/2 ounce at the other feeds allowing for a more gradual tapering off. I think it'll be a bit of an organic process as well because at some point they'll likely want to nurse more often and/or for longer as that's how your body will know to make more milk (supply/demand). So just watch their cues & try to follow along as best as possible. Also keep an eye on their output as a way to know they're getting enough: http://kellymom.com/bf/normal/newborn-nursing/ (scroll down for info on weeks 2-6). You've got this! :good:

 

Wow. I can't believ how much this conversation matches what we are going through. Lucy and Maren were born 18 days ago and becausethey were losing weight we supplemented one ounce every other feeding (formula and pumped milk). They are both back to birthweight and for the past few days we've been stopping the supplementing gradually. Now I'm not sure how much I should be pumping. I used to pump after almost every feeding to get supplemental milk, but now that we are supplementing maybe once or twice a day, does it make sense to pump only once or twice a day?