All the books on parenting twins say you should try to get them on the same feeding schedule. While this is true, it should not be anywhere near the top of your priority list in the first 48 hours of your kids' lives. They need alone time with mama to practice latching and try out different positions before you put them both on your giant nursing pillow together and let them go to town!
Big Guy had no trouble nursing, but Little Guy wouldn't always latch. When he did latch, he couldn't suck for very long before he was utterly exhausted. For this reason and because his blood sugar was low, we decided to supplement with formula until my milk came in.
Those early feedings went like this: I would nurse Big Guy first to get things flowing. Then I would try to nurse Little Guy. Sometimes he would latch, and sometimes not. Then I would give him a tiny bit of formula. In an effort to avoid artificial nipples, we spoon fed the formula at first. Then we moved to putting formula in a syringe and slowly expelling it into his mouth while he sucked on one of our fingers. Finally we gave up on these tedious methods and just gave the kid a normal bottle.
The second night in the hospital, Big Guy decided to cluster feed for hours on end. My nipples were sore, but I let him continue as long as he wanted because I knew that by nursing he was telling my body to produce milk. Sure enough, the very next day my milk came in. The lactation consultant was thrilled!
Now Little Guy could ditch the formula. The new plan was to nurse them both and then give Little Guy a supplement bottle of expressed breastmilk, which meant that at the end of every feeding I had to pump enough to make a supplement bottle for the next feeding.
Technically this is still the plan that my pediatrician would like me to follow, but Little Guy has gotten better at nursing. He is often full after he nurses, and he'll refuse the supplement bottle. I still make sure there's always expressed breastmilk available, but I don't have to pump after every feeding anymore. Now I pump two or three times a day.
With all that said, I now want to reflect on a few things that made this early stage of nursing easier, and for which I am so grateful.
1) I'm grateful that I had two babies. If Big Guy wasn't here to get the milk flowing for Little Guy, I might still be supplementing with formula.
2) I'm grateful that I already had a pump and a bunch of supplies at home. I hardly pumped at all with my daughter, and I didn't expect to pump this much for the boys. Still, I had plenty of breastmilk storage bags and bottles because people had given them to me. Thanks all you generous people for knowing whet I needed before I did!
3) I'm grateful that I nursed my daughter first. I already knew about sore, cracked nipples and engorged breasts. I already knew how tricky it could be to get a baby to latch. I already knew that I had to approach nursing with patience and determination.
The first time I was able to nurse both the boys at the same time on my giant nursing pillow, I actually let Rob take a picture. I don't ever intend to show that picture to anyone, but I'm glad there is evidence of that victorious moment.
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