From the Nursing Chair: Breastfeeding at Four Months

The sweet stuff:
They hold hands sometimes. They grin...at each other and at me.

The sour stuff:
They punch each other in the throat/eye/forehead, grab a fistful of boob and pull it out of the other's mouth.

The gross but cute stuff:
They suck on each others fingers.

The short-lived stuff:
They fall asleep.

Ah, sleep. The twin mom's obsession.

We are going to be sleep training next week, mainly because the boys don't fall asleep on their own anymore. Ever. Like, ever. They need nursing, rocking, bouncing, or a stroller ride to snooze. All night. Every nap. Amidst thoughts of "where did I go wrong?" I question whether this is a problem.

When they are both peacefully cuddled up next to me, I bask in their sleepy noises and little puffs of breath and it's not a problem, it's the best, most natural thing ever!

When one of them stirs after only 20 minutes, wakes the other with attempts to settle, finally reattaches and goes to sleep, but now the other one is awake/crying/wet/wants to play, it's a problem. A big problem. I have bounced an energetic 4-month-old on my right while another baby is sleepily sucking away on my left. It's not fun. For anyone. And it's worse when I just. Have. To. Pee.

I used to worry a lot about the boys having to adjust their own internal rhythms to match another person. It's not fair, not natural, they are short-changed, how will we ever get to know them as individuals, blah blah blah. I was an idiot.

The same schedule gives twins the opportunity to do the same thing at the same time. Different schedules and non-independent sleep take away the ability of twins to meet their unique needs.

We offer food at the same time. Squeak and Squish control how much they take in. By offering a common nap time, away from mom, the boys will get to determine their own sleep, as well as enjoy play time that is not curtailed by a slumbering brother.

Oh yeah, and maybe their mom won't go crazy because she'll have a chance to pee/eat/shower.

This is how I'm preparing myself for sleep-training. Wish me luck.

From the Nursing Chair: How to Hang Out While You're Hanging Out

This post is part of From the Nursing Chair, a series on the joys and challenges of breastfeeding twins.

If you come over to my house, you're probably going to see my boobs.

Tandem feeding means you feed two babies at the same time. I mean, the math works. But the logistics take time and patience (a natural proficiency for acrobatics doesn't hurt) to master. This isn't like the posters you see of serene (thin? well-rested??) mothers with one rosy-cheeked babe (and her hair is done?!), gazing down at him lovingly (holding him in one arm?? Her poor back...) while discretely hiding all of the food source except a tiny peep of bosom so smooth and milky white you might mistake it for a baby's cheek. No. Tandem feeding is full frontal nudity lunging over a giant nursing pillow, arms spread wide to collect your tiny brood to your bosom like a protective mama hen. Sure, the babies bellied up to the milk bar cover the X rated parts...until they are done, and decide to hide under the boob to sleep (Squeak), enjoy the softness of a boob pillow (who wouldn't?), or randomly startle backward, like a magician doing his big reveal!

What about a blanket tastefully drapped over the tender scene, you ask? Well, hormones make you hot. And double hormones make you feel like you've been roaming the savannah for 10 sun-baked days. Meanwhile, juggling the crying babies, fighting their tiny, razor-sharp claws, and stuffing two nipples different directions into two frantically grasping mouths is sweaty work, my friends. Add a large heavy cloth to the mixture? No thank you.

Now, I don't tandem feed in public. Much. I have done it in breastfeeding center (is that even considered 'public'?) and a couple times in a parking lot in the back of our car. But typically if I'm out and have to feed the boys, I do it one at a time under a blanket or hooter hider like everyone else. In my own home, however, I have no interest in hearing one hungry baby cry while I try to rush the other along just for the comfort of our guests. So I've spent a surprisingly lot of time chatting with friends while my top is completely exposed.

Here are some tips for making your guests feel, if not more comfortable, at least less horrified:

1. If you're eating while breastfeeding (and who are we kidding, of course you are), avoid wiping the crumbs out of your cleavage right away. I know they're itchy, but wait til you're in the bathroom. And while the guest is holding a baby and you're alone for one brief shining moment, catch up on flossing, nail trimming, ear-cleaning, and your mail.

2. Set up your throne in a room other than, but ideally adjacent to, the living room. This way people can select their own comfort level. Plus, you get to eavesdrop. Try to get your husband to get them to say something about you so you'll know what they really think.

3. Before handing off a baby, tuck that boob back into your bra. Nothing quite like realizing you've been wildly gesticulating for the past 10 minutes while your mammaries fly akimbo.

4. More reason to tuck the boob away immediately: the eager baby-holder might accidentally graze your nip with the back of their hand during transfer. The jury is still out on whom this is the most unpleasant for.

5. Interpret that wide-eyed, car-wreck-I-should-look-away-from stare thusly: wow! She's amazing! I could never do that! How impressive! And it's true: all those sweet little rolls and dimples your guests are admiring were made by you, times two, by your wonderful body. You are performing two miracles at once. Hang out with pride - and if someone has a problem, don't hang out with them :o)

From the Nursing Chair: Tandem Crying

This post is part of From the Nursing Chair, a series on the joys and challenges of breastfeeding twins.

Squish and Squeak at 6 weeks. It's blurry because I could never stop moving!

When the virtues of tandem nursing are extolled, you rarely hear about its worst side effect: tandem crying. When two babies are accustomed to eating at the same time, they become hungry at the same time, thus start crying at the same time. Occasionally they even poop at the same time, necessitating a tandem diaper change...you get the idea.

Somehow, this doesn't carry over to sleeping at the same time, at least not at first. Go figure.

The key, I've discovered, is to get a jump on when they are likely to start crying and give them what they want before they start to panic. By 10 weeks old, we the boys started to get on an eat-wake-sleep rhythm, I could predict with greater certainty what need is next in the queue and act before all hell breaks loose.

Most of the time.

From the Nursing Chair: Breastfeeding Twins

There is a throne in my house these days.

Double-wide nursing pillow, iPad, tea...it's the base of operations. This is where I feed my 12-week-old twins.

Breastfeeding twins has been a horrible, wonderful, sweet, uncomfortable, intimate challenge that I am finally enjoying. Most of the time.

As of 4.5 weeks old, I have exclusively breastfed my twins. Prior to that time, four days of extra hospitalization for me (due to an infection), 8% weight loss for Squeak, and general exhaustion necessitated some formula supplements and expressed breastmilk by cup and bottle, in addition to breastfeeding. Imagine feeding two babies on demand, at least every hour and a half, individually, round the clock, for at least 30 minutes per feeding, and one of them had a poor latch. While healing from emergency c-section/infection/twin pregnancy. Oh and then I had an allergic reaction to a vaccine and couldn't move my arm...followed by an absess on my tailbone that made sitting painful.

It. Was. Insane.

Maybe if I can remember more than a hazy blur of awfulness, I'll tell you about it sometime.

I had planned to breastfeed my children, but accepted that I might have to supplement with formula because there were two of them. I didn't think it was a big deal either way.

It turned out to be a huge deal. I was totally unprepared for how emotionally charged, how tied to a sense of self-worth, breastfeeding would be for me.

Breastfeeding is food, comfort, intimate communion with these people that have been growing inside you for almost a year. It's the center, home, the wellspring. After becoming accustomed to toting around two extra bodies 24/7, I find tandem feeding to be one of the only ways I can comfortably feel complete - that both my babies are close, safe, where they belong. So if it's not going well, or you're a new mother so you have no freaking clue how it's going, because it hurts and feels weird and you can't see the milk and your babies eat totally differently, well...let's just say there are many deep, primal emotions that rise up from the back of the reptilian brain and surge over the rational parts, drowning them out completely.

When I read up on breastfeeding prior to giving birth, I constantly had to wonder: does this apply to twins? How do you do that (feed on demand, get into position, get a full feeding) with twins? I also heard nothing but doomsday prophecies about supply shortage. This cuts to the core of a mother's fears: I can't feed my children. Yes, I have googled "signs of starvation in newborns" at midnight...and again at 2am, just to reassure myself. It's so easy to pass over that first teeny tiny sentence, "Most women will be fine," and skip right to, "but there can be complications," which are described in agonizing details over the next 300 pages or so. This is especially true for multiples.

Despite reading everything ever written on pregnancy, birth, and childcare, I never did find the book I was really looking for: a whole volume of the positive mantras designed to build the new mother's confidence and shore up her emotional fortitude, with a tiny chapter in the back for the few facts you need to know, like get nipple cream and football hold is king.

Meanwhile, we need more stories about variations of normal. So I offer you my normal.

This post is the first in a series of musings on breastfeeding twins. It's based totally on my experience. I have no expertise other than my own experience. I pass no judgement on families who decide to use formula, or expressed breastmilk, or any combination of loving healthy ways to nourish their children. And I readily admit, maybe double breastfeeding isn't a big deal to everyone. But it's a big deal to me, and if it is for you too, hopefully I can offer some encouragement. Or make you laugh a little. Or make you glad you never did it.

In any case, this is my truth about breastfeeding twins.