Tandem feeding by yourself?

Three week old twins:

My husband is back at work this week - though he does work from home on Tuesday/Thursday, which is wonderful. So, MWF I am by myself with the babies. Sometimes I can stagger their feedings and get one done right before the other wakes up, which gives me no downtime but allows me to at least give it a go at breastfeeding them. However, if they wake at the same time, I am having to give them a bottle because I have not been able to tandem feed them without my husband here to help me.

Any tips on tandem feeding by yourself? I have an EZ2Nurse pillow but I haven't found it that useful. I sit with it on the couch and and soon as I get one on and latched, the other pops off my nipple. They tend to roll the edges of the pillow if I am not holding them in place with my hands. Maybe I just am not using the pillow correctly

 

Three week old was the magic age when my hubby went back to work as well. I was so nervous. I found though, the more I did myself, the more I knew I could do myself, including tandom breastfeeding on the ez2nurse pillow. What i did was to sit in the middle of the couch with the pillow FASTENED around me. I would put each baby on each side of me, head away from me or more than likely towards the front of the couch. I would put on on the pillow in position and then carefully go for the other one. Once they were in the right position I would latch the 'strong' latcher, in my case, my son. Then I would work on the other one to get her latched on, all while being careful to make sure my son was still nursing. The more you do it, the better you'll get and the better they'll get at holding on and nursing. You can do it! :woman: Glad you have help a few days a week!! Congratulations on your twins!

 

I got tandem feeding by myself down by 4-5 weeks. I use the EZ2 nurse pillow and it works well for me. Are you doing double football hold? I set one on the couch. then grab the pillow and the other twin and place that one on in the football position, not latched. then I reach to my side and get the other twin from the couch, placing him in the football position on the other side. then I latch first one then the other. They stay on my pillow fairly well... don't know why yours would roll off.

 

I did the same, sitting on the bed with one baby on either side. After picking up the first one to put on the pillow I placed a rolled up towel behind the baby to keep them from rolling off. Eventually they got heavy enough that the towel was no longer needed. After getting both safely on the pillow you can concentrate on latching. Good luck!

 

I also second nursing on the bed, I used to sit Indian style to have my legs to support the babies, for the longest time also I would swaddle the babies using the swaddling blankets, so I could pick them up as a "package" and not have to be so worried about them squirming around.

 

Make sure you're buckling the pillow on quite snuggly - that will help. Also, one side of the EZ2 is flat & the other side is designed to dip in towards you - make sure the dip in towards you side is up as that will help keep the babies from rolling. I second the tip on having a rolled up towel or receiving blanket tucked behind their backs to "wedge" them in a bit more. I found too that I needed to bring up the height of the front of the pillow in the beginning so I could get the girls to the right height for me - I would fold a towel or receiving blanket & put that on my lap before buckling on the nursing pillow.

And as others have said - practice, practice, practice! You'll get better & better at it & figure out your own unique tips & tricks that make it work for you as you go. :youcandoit:

 

great advice! I LOVED our nursing pillow, it was a lifesaver. make sure to buckle it and to have the little pillow or another pillow behind you so that the sides of the nursing pillow extend back behind that pillow... (hard to explain in words), but you need to make sure that the pillow fits against your tummy, so that there isn't a big gap in the front. I needed to actually put a thin pillow on top of my lap sometimes to bring the level of the pillow up so that they would get to the right level for my breasts since I am long waisted.

keep up the good work, you will figure it out. I did the bed a lot, or the couch, or the floor in front of the couch...

 

thanks for the tips, I am going to try it tomorrow.

 

Good luck! I've found tandem feeding got easier once the girls had the latch down - it took a few weeks for us as well.

 

Tried today and actually felt much better about tandem feeding... The tips you guys gave were very helpful. I didn't realize there was a flat/sloped side to the pillow and using the sloped side helped a lot. I also strapped the pillow to myself (previously I thought that was there just for the back pillow) and that seemed to snug it to me better. I still have a bit of a gap in the front so a towel or something may be necessary up there. I also got both babies on the pillow before attempting to latch and that worked better.

now my baby boy is still fighting my latch so I have to keep working with him but for a brief time I managed to tandem feed BY MYSELF. It was promising.

 

WOO-HOO!!!!! :clapping:

 

:yahoo: That's great to hear!! It's all about the baby steps & figuring out what works for you. Keep up the awesome work. :good: