Nursing... maybe TMI?

A lot of people have inquired about nursing – whether I did it, am doing it, and how it was going. Well, I always had the intention to nurse the girls as a primary source of their diet, and supplement formula when I needed to. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, as I had heard from my friends, but I also assumed I would get the hang of it quickly, and that it’d be no big thing.

For my shower, I registered for and received My Breast Friend Twins Nursing Pillow, guaranteeing my friends that I would figure out how to feed both girls at once, just like the picture shows. To be honest, I used the pillow a handful of times and never for both girls at once.



When I had the girls and was waiting in recovery, I remember Luciana being a bit fussy, so the nurse suggested I try and nurse her. So I tried. I hoped in my mind that she would immediately catch on and I would magically float through nursing, telling all my friends that it was no big deal. Of course that wasn’t reality. Reality was me being a little shy about exposing myself, even though I had just been sprawled out naked in front of a dozen or so doctors and nurses. Reality was Luciana knowing what she wanted to do, but not quite catching on. Reality was me trying for all of a minute, and then deciding to give up until we were in our assigned room.

To be honest, I wanted the nursing thing to come easily. I tried and tried with both girls, by myself, and had no success. The lactation consultants came and offered me advice, and showed me how to position the girls and help them out, but no success. Turns out, my boobs weren’t all about the nursing thing and it made it very hard for the girls to latch on. So I tried pumping, and we supplemented the girls while we were there.

When we left 4 days later, I still had all intentions of nursing. But I was going to try again when I got home. So help with this, Bruno and I were finger feeding the girls so as not to give them nipple confusion. This was suggested by the lactation consultant and though it took forever for the girls to eat, we were gun-ho about it. Of course this tactic made the girls work even harder for their food and even though they were eating a lot, they, specifically Luciana, was actually losing weight because of the amount of work she did just to eat. So to the bottle we went.

The consultants urged me to rent the hospital grade breast pump, but I refused to pay to rent it when I knew I had one for free. My friend gave me hers to use, so I figured why pay for something when I don’t need to. I found out very quickly that I should have taken the hospital grade pump home, as the one I got from my friend was better suited for later in the pumping phase. I needed something stronger and thankfully I had an appointment with a lactation consultant 2 days later who helped me through the pain of not having a strong one.

"First off, we need to take care of those!" she exclaims as I expose my breast for help.

So we did. And it helped. Per the advice of the consultants in the hospital, I was also using a nipple shield. This would help the girls try to figure out how to latch on and it worked for a while. Little did I know that this was only supposed to be a temporary solution... I used it on the girls for the whole 1.5 months I nursed them. Oh well.



I ended up renting a hospital grade pump, and also a scale. Bruno and I were so concerned about the girls gaining weight that renting the scale really put us at ease, knowing if they were growing. It also let me know exactly how much milk the girls ate when I nursed them. It was that instantaneous. Very cool.

I did try to work on the nursing thing for a while. I decided I needed to work with the girls individually before trying them both at the same time. Initially, it was painful and frustrating. The girls were very fussy and my boobs were not liking this nursing nonsense. I cried a lot trying to figure it out. I envied my friends who had already succeeded and felt horrible that I hadn't. It took about 2.5 weeks for the girls to catch on, and for the pain to go away. I felt so confident, sometimes able to nurse one while bottle feeding the other. Yeah!

But then the girls started eating more. The formula intake went up, and I wasn't producing enough to nurse the girls the same amount. Basically, the bottle fed girl would get more than the nursed girl at each feeding. This in turn threw off their schedule and aided in more frustration. When I would nurse, it took about 30 minutes since using the nipple shield doesn't extract as much milk per suck.

I ended up nursing each girl once a day, and bottle feeding them all the other times. In the beginning, while I nursed, the other would have breastmilk from the bottle. To be honest, I think one reason my supply starting running low was because I wasn't pumping enough. I remember waking up every 2-3 hours to pump... then it became 3-4 hours... then 4-5 and so on. Pumping was exhausting and I was just tired all the time from watching them all day. I needed energy to keep up, and waking up to pump wasn't going to help that.

Initally, I had intentions of pumping until work started because the idea of being confined in a server room for 20 minutes didn't exactly appeal to me. But when the time came, despite my supply really diminishing, I felt bad and did it anyhow. That lasted all of 3 work days. I told Bruno I would pump until the end of the month. That didn't happen. By now I was only producing 1.5, maybe 2oz per session. And when the girls are drinking 5-6oz/feeding... it would take me 24 hours to produce enough for 1/2 of a feeding for each of them. So I decided that I needed to stop...

Do I feel guilty? Certainly. I feel like I gave up too soon with the girls, and didn't try hard enough. Everyone tells me, "Oh but you had twins! It's much harder." Sure, it's harder. But plenty of moms of multiples do it. I feel bad that I worried more about getting sleep and wanting the girls to sleep longer (formula-fed babies tend to do this) than pushing myself to give the girls all the amazing benefits of breastmilk. I feel sad that I will most likely never have this opportunity again... and it's such an amazing thing that moms can do for their babies.

I'm sure it's a common feeling, and probably the reason why moms nurse longer than they say they will. It's sad to give it up, despite the hardships. I'm just about over the guilt, but sometimes, I still feel bad. But my girls are growing, and that's what matters. There are PLENTY of formula-fed babies who are awesome, so I know I shouldn't feel bad. But some days, I do.