For World Breastfeeding Week I love to highlight important information around breastfeeding as well as sharing tips from my own experiences. This year I’m 16 months into tandem feeding twins and so I wanted to share my top 6 tips for tandem feeding twins.
When you find out you’re having twins you usually pounce on any twin mums you know in your community or quickly find twins and multiples facebook groups. Typically you’re met with a combination of contradicting opinions and statements ‘poor you’, ‘double trouble’, ‘good luck’ or ‘wow you’re so lucky’, ‘double the love’, ‘only special people get twins’.
That quickly becomes well meaning tips and advice and if you’re anything like me and have been through it all before, a lot of twin advice doesn’t quite sit right. With no judgement at all, we all mother differently and we all have babies with different needs and temperaments. During my preganancy I read ‘The Continuum Concept’ by Jean Liedloff and so much of it deeply resonated with my husband and I. With our daughter we decided to have a home birth, I exclusively breastfeed on demand, we didn’t have a pram, we just did baby wearing, we bed shared and just rolled with what felt right and manageable for the early years. It was wonderful and it worked really well for me and my family and it was exactly how I wanted to mother.
Then I found out I was pregnant with twins and all of a sudden I was told, you can’t home birth, you can’t breastfeed on demand, schedule feeds and you probably won’t feed for long, baby wearing doesn’t work, get 2 cots, sleep train and schedule, schedule, schedule. Not to mention sentiments like, you need to sync them, wake one up if the other won’t go to sleep and so on…
Naturally I was determined to do things differently. I wanted to do for my twins what I did with my daughter because it felt right. My breastfeeding experience with my daughter wasn’t easy. It started with a handful of challenges from latch, insufficient transfer of milk, mastitis, lip and tongue tie, pumping and line feeding. I had support and guidance from an IBCLC and within the first 8 weeks we were on track and I went on to breastfeed until she was 26 months.
So whilst I try not to project past experiences onto future babes, I do think knowledge is power and having a plan in place can really help. For the twins I connected with my IBCLC to have her on stand by if I needed support. I also had a private midwife to support me in home postpartum and a postpartum doula.
Again I had a bit of a rocky start with poor latch and milk transfer, supply issues and tongue and lip ties. It was a steep learning curve juggling two very different babies at the same time but I’m writing to you now with 16 month old twins who are still breastfeeding on demand.
A supportive tandem feeding pillow makes the world of difference. It provides the necessary support to position both babies comfortably and helps reduce strain on your back and shoulders. You might end up spend hours sat under your feeding pillow (I did) and it can become incredibly uncomfortable. I destroyed my back using the Twin Z and the Breastfriend feeding pillows before investing in the Twin Go Nurse and Lounge. It is significantly more expensive than the others but absolutely worth the investment. It has amazing back support and two layers so it easily brings babies up to bust height when they are small. I eventually kept one half in the car so I had a structured feeding pillow when we wen’t out.
Whether you’re feeding one baby or twins I always encourage mums to connect with a Lactation Consultant, preferably an IBCLC prior to your babe(s) arriving. This way you have someone you know and have connected with ready to jump in and help as soon as you need it. It can be hard to do research and organise appointments when you are sleep deprived, vulnerable and overwhelmed. As well as professional help, the support of friends and family can have such a huge impact on your breastfeeding journey, especially with twins. They can be there to support you both emotionally and physically. I’ve done a deeper dive into the power of support for breastfeeding here. I will add that with twins, you can’t just jump up holding feeding twins like you can with one baby, so you will need people around you to help.
One of the best pieces of advice I got from another twin mama around breastfeeding was to try and master each baby’s latch individually first. If you can, try to spend some time feeding each baby individually to perfect their latch and ensure they are feeding efficiently. You really want to try and avoid having both nipples damaged and this can happen if you are trying to feed two babies at the same time from the start. A good feeding pillow makes this so much easier too. Once both babies have a good latch, you can start feeding them together.
As part of nesting I always encourage mums to focus on creating a space or spaces for themselves before worrying about the nursery for the babe(s). This is especially important for twin mums as you often have no hands free. You also can’t jump up easily holding two babies like you can with one, and breastfeeding twins is extra hungry and thirsty work. Set up stations around your house with drink bottles and snacks so you always have what you need on hand! Organising your postpartum meal deliveries with your village will also be a lifesaver for helping nourish and replenish you while you focus on mastering tandem breastfeeding.
From experience, the more you track and schedule your babies activity, the more stressed you become and the less you trust your motherly intuition. Unless you are specificlaly tracking things for important medical information, just remember that babies take time to find their groove just like you do. This is even more true for twins, even with identical twins you don’t have 2 cookie cutter babies. You have two individual babies who will have their own unique habits, needs, techniques, cues and so on. Let you babies lead, let them feed when they are hungry and when they need comfort. They need to feed reguarly during those early weeks to help establish your supply too. They will not be in sync from birth so trying to track and schedule their feeds will both drive you insane and add so much unnecessary stress and pressure. It may feel like you are feeding 20 hours a day and it can be a lot. But know that it is normal, it is okay, it is a season and the more support and love you have around you the easier it will become. Which leads me to my final tip…
Remember that tandem feeding can be challenging, especially in the beginning. It’s important to be kind to yourself and recognise that it will get easier as your babies grow. Celebrate the small victories and don’t be too hard on yourself during tough times. You are amazing and you’ve got this mama!
Are you expecting twins and planning to tandem feed? Or are you a tandem feeding twin mama? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Leila x
Tailored for the busy mum navigating the demands of motherhood, offering over 30 easy-to-prepare, nourishing recipes.
