I know I still have plenty of time to go, but since we found out we are having twins we have been proactive in getting prepared and organized...

I would like to breastfeed my babies and I was wondering if it's possible to exclusively b/f twins at the same time? Has anyone mastered it without completely sacrificing all sleep and sanity?

I think that when the babies are little, I'll might be able to tandem feel them 'football hold' (as uncomfortable as that was for me last time...)

But what happens when they get bigger?
Would I b/f baby1 while using a breast pump to extract milk to use in a bottle later, and at the same time have baby2 bottle fed by another family member? And next feed swap babies so they each get the breast and a cuddle with mum?
Is this idea too ambitious? Is it more realistic to breast and formula feed? Alternating babies each feed?

Is there any assistance in Brisbane for b/f mothers with twins?

I'm open to all suggestions, so I'd love to hear your experiences or strategies.

I breast fed one at a time as I found that easier for me.

If you are in Melbourne the Vic branch of the ABA runs breastfeeding twins sessions

The dates for them are: Saturday 7th of August and Saturday 20th of November.
They are held at Dandenong - ph is 9791 4644 - Demand is very high for the classes though!!

Think Twins has the best rangs of twin breast feeding pillows See here

Many women do really well with tandem feeding - I think I didn't do that well with it is beacuse I didn't have a great pillow and it was just too hard for me.

I did them together when they were newborns as they took up to an hour to feed. When they got faster I did them one after the other.

I never felt anything but slightly clumsy and off balace when I did them together. Didn't much like it to be honest.

i dont belong here at all BUt i have 2 friends that exclusively breastfed their twins 12mths so it defiantely is possible! they both used a strict schedule though.... probably more to help with maternal exhaustion etc rather than for the twins....
i think you basically allocate a boob to each twin and then go for it.... i assume that yours breasts would adapt to each bubs need/wants!

That must have taken ages!!! My DS used to take about 45 minutes per feed! Were you twins faster? And did you alternate breast/twins? (as in: Twin 1 gets left beast, twin 2 gets right breast. And then swap babies next feed)

Mmmm, that's how I felt with the football hold - clumsy and off balance. Is football hold how you tandem fed your newborn twins?

From about 2 weeks I tandem fed my b/g twins in the football style and now they are 20months and i still feed them this way. They also feed sitting on my legs facing me too sometimes. I used heaps of pillows when they were small to build them up to right level to feed, then i could feed hands free and was able to eat, drink, use the laptop etc while feeding. As they get bigger the combination of pillows changed butt i still feed them in football now. On the sleep front, Mine were pretty good sleepers after a month or so, but if they woke in the early morning, I could feed them and dose off cause the pillows slanted towards me and they couldn't roll off.

Breastfeeding exclusively is not easy, weight gain is up and down and doctors, midwifes, child health will hassle you if your baby doesn't put on enough weight. My son was not consistantly putting on heaps of weight but was contented and alert, so although it stressed me from tim to time I knew he was fine.

On the sanity front, I found that if they were having a grunbly day I could feed them and they would be content.

I can send some pics if you want, Let me know your email.

To tell you the truth I cannot remember how long each one took to feed in the early days
But by 4 months I had both fed and burped one after the other in 30mins.
They were great feeders and I had a great supply.

Each boy was assigned a boob and that boob looked after each boy.
I found if I was able to move around and still feed and still discrete. When I tried tandem feeding I was stuck and totally exposed.

I fully b/f my twins to 20 months old. I highly recommend a good b/f pillow (I used the EZ-2-Nurse Twins inflatable one) and yes I started with the football hold, which I had never felt comfortable with while feeding my singletons. As they got older I used other holds too - like a sort of V hold, and then as they got even older they took it however they could get to it. The football hold was still the most used and most comfortable although I didn't need the pillow once they got bigger.

Our first feed at home (before I inflated the pillow):


With the pillow:
IMG]http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w255/ravenburn/854_thumb.jpg[/IMG]

About 5 months old in crossover type position:


Still going at 11m:


Football hold at 15m with chair cushions rather than b/f pillow:


Whereabouts in Brisbane are you? I'm a Brissy gal - northside.

If b/f is working for you I wouldn't want the hassle of having to pump and wash bottles too. Tandem feeding makes it so fast, but doesn't work for everyone.

Oh and I just have to post this one too, as it's my favourite .

Hi there,

Congratulations on find out you are having twins!!!!

I was extremely lucky that from hospital onwards my babies were super quick feeders. Maximum of 10-15 minutes each every 3 hours - so I usually fed separately unless they both woke up screaming at the same time. If that happened I would use the football hold with a twin feeding pillow.

Many people exclusively bf twins successfully without using formula or expressing. I found that in the early days when the babies tired very easily I would offer a formula feed once a day to help them conserve energy, but this only lasted a few weeks until they were less sleepy.

Supply wise I had no issues until a few weeks ago (around the 3 month mark) where it seemed overnight that there needs were more than I could supply. So depending on the day, they might get one formula top-up (usually in the afternoon). Sometimes they don't need any. I'm pretty flexible though and don't mind them having formula if I'm not there.

Expressing for bottles is a great idea, but time consuming, so I've found myself hardly ever doing it, although its good for maintaining good milk supply and for top ups. Expressing for one baby would be quite hard work.

By the time they get bigger, they may be feeding so quickly that you don't have to tandem feed and just feed one after the other, toping up with either formula or EBM if required.....

I'm in Brisbane and usually in the hospital they will give you a list of Board Certified Lactation Consultants. My babes were in special care for one week, and to be honest, it was a blessing for establishing breast feeding. Not saying that you don't get that on the ward, but there is a higher staff to baby ratio in the nursery so you often get more assistance. At the Mater there was a LC that routinely came through the Special Care Nursery who would help you out as required.

Feel free to PM me if you want to ask any questions.....There are a few lovely ladies on here from Brisbane who are very helpful.

Take Care
Michelle

For the first few weeks whilst they were in hospital I fed them one at a time as it could take sooo long to feed them.

When they came home they were fed together and I always use the football hold position. I found this very comfortable and enabled me to feel like I was cuddling them as this was the only time I had to cuddle them in those early days.

It did take a few weeks to master how to get them both on the boob when I was eventually on my own. Be persistent as it sures beats making up bottles of formula and having to sterilise all of those bottles.

Bec, I love those pics. I wish we had taken pics of me feeding our twins like that. I'm jealous

yes, we got to over 9 months. I tandem feed for the first few months, then mostly individual feeding. I didn't do the football hold with DS1 as I felt uncomfortable, but for some reason (probably practice) it worked with the twins.

I just used the Zoo feeding pillow on our lounge or in bed. I would get them both lying on the pillow, attach one then the other. When young, I would have to carefully watch attachment and often reattach one.

When I fed one, I fed the other. This usually kept them in the same cycles, so I was able to work to a routine. Keeping them on the same sleep/feed cycles helped keep my sanity. I also expressed 1hr after the first and last feeds and gave it to them as a top up before bed. This worked for me, and usually bought us 5-8 hrs before the next feed. The downside is that I developed a love/hate relationship with my breast pump.
Get a good double electric breastpump. It helps build up supply and saves you time.
It is achievable, but not the end of the world if you find it doesn't work out.

Oh Bec, what great photos. I wish I hadn't been so self conscious about photos back then .

OP, I tandem fed using the football hold for 13 months. I just used a V shaped pillow. Highly recommend a footrest too. It can make all the difference to your back, and I found I could used my knees to adjust the height of the babies' heads. We swapped boobs each feed.

It's funny, even on the rare occasion I fed them separately, I still used the football hold. I guess I was just so used to it by then.

I tandem fed for 5 months then mostly individually as they got so quick (10 minutes each). Very rarely would they both cry at the same time for a feed after 5 months, so it was pretty staright forward. I would tandem feed if I had too, and I still do occassionally, but usually this is lying down in bed at 4am.

The pnly time I ever had to pump was when I was trying to boost my supply.

I found I had to work hard at setting up my 'station'. I took over our 2 seater lounge, had to put a board underneath the cushions to help me from sinking, lots of pillows everywhere, remotes, food stash, water by the bucket load, laptop (most importantly) with wireless mouse. After about 4 weeks I could get both babies out of bed and tandem feed, burp and return to bed on my own. It takes practice but it is doable.

I will try and post a pic of my setup.

(Have BFing ones, but too shy to post!)

Hi

I BF my boys until they were 8 months old (with FF at night from 4 weeks old until they slept through at 5 months). All BFs were tandem hold - I set up on a wide arm chair with pillows that I squished in between me and the arm rests. I never got the hang of tandem feeding out and about so I would take EBM (or later formula) and feed one and bottle feed the other. I always fed the boys at the same time - and regularly woke up the sleeping twin so they could feed together. I had more trouble on the LHS (I think because I am right handed) and ended up with mastitis on that side (thank goodness for nipple shields!). I swapped the boys around each feed so neither of them got used to one side in particular and both sides got drained properly. I also hired an pump from the hospital for the first 3 months - I had a lot of frozen EBM (but also did a lot of pump and dump when I was on abs for mastitis). I had a love/hate relationship with the pump - loved that it was fast (about 10mins and I was done) and that I had EBM and good but hated cleaning the parts and feeling like a dairy cow!

good luck and HTH

Redchick

Thank you so much ladies! You are all so lovely to share your experiences so openly with me! I have learnt a lot! You support is really appreciated!

Thank you for the lovely photos too!
They really helped me visualise how it's done! Now I know what BF pillow to look out for and not to bother buying a chair.

Thanks again!

I b/f my twins for 14 months. I think I could count on one hand the number of times I tandem fed. The rest of the time it was one after the other (or on demand). TBH, I did sacrifice sleep and sanity, but I suspect this was also because one of the boys had silent reflux that was never well-managed, so he barely slept for 6 months, and screamed most of the day (and night, unless he had a boob in his mouth).

I tried a twin b/f pillow but it didn't work for me as it was too big (the bit where you sit, I mean, I'm too skinny, so the babies kept slipping down into the crack!). So one-by-one it was. I would leave each twin on the same breast for 24 hours, then switch for the next 24h.

The one thing that I wish I'd done differently from the start is to try and be a little more routine-oriented, compared to the completely demand-led feeding we did with all my DDs. When I finally went to sleep school, and got the boys into a routine, the difference in their feeding and sleeping was incredible. I had to work hard to stick to it (it went totally against my parenting nature), but it was worth it. It's the only piece of advice I kick myself for having ignored for so long.