One breastfed one bottle- any tips? Am I just mad to even try?

[NotPayingAttention]

Hi I have 2 week old dcda girls. After much much effort on both our parts during 5 days in hospital and some time afterwards, twin 2 just doesn't seem compatible with breastfeeding. I have now given up as it's stressing us both out- we had a little try again this evening which led to the same frustrations. So I'm expressing now and she has 50/50 BM/formula. Twin 1 is ebf and doing really well. I love bf and don't want to stop as although it will probably make life easier I would just be gutted.
Anyone found themselves in this situation? Maybe it's quite common? If so any tips/encouraging tales? I'm finding it so difficult when alone and they (quite often) wake up together. I wouldn't really want them out of sync as the nights would be horrendous as they're both slow messy feeders. Thanks in advance.

[forcedgeneric]

No advice but we are in the same boat. Twin boys born 7 weeks early. We breastfed both for 6 weeks but smaller twin struggled and so had frequent formula top ups. Made the decision to switch him about a week ago and also expressing so 50/50. So far it seems to have made life easier, although faffing about with bottles is not ideal.

I think with twins it really is whatever works for you, and any amount of breastmilk is amazing. So far we haven't been out of sync at nights, but this is probably due to the fact that both boys would go 6 hours at night if left (not good for weight gain). We set an alarm approx every 3-4 hours and i breastfeed one while husband bottlefeeds the other

[NotPayingAttention]

Hi forcedgeneric, thanks for your reply, it's nice to know I'm not alone. Just as an update- I had a member of the local NHS feeding team come round last week, she thinks she can see a tongue-tie in my twin 2, which would hopefully explain the problems we've been facing. Unfortunately there's a 6 week wait on proper assessment and revision in the NHS so we've decided to get it seen to on a private basis. We're being seen this weekend. My twin 1 was doing well but is now starting to show some subtle symptoms and doesn't have the greatest latch etc so we're going to get her assessed too, and the specialist I spoke to told me its rare to have one twin affected and not the other. We have fingers crossed it will make the difference for us.
If not I'm coming round to the situation of bottle feeding one twin and I can see there are actually some advantages.

[VictoriaRoses]

I'm a member of a really great Facebook group 'Breastfeeding Twins and Triplets UK' the leader is really knowledgeable

[Monkeymarbles]

I breastfed (and combination fed) one twin and bottle fed the other for the first 6 months. One of my twins was in hospital for too long to latch effectively (despite breastfeeding counsellor input) and I enjoyed breastfeeding and found it easier to feed one and bottle feed the other. I tried to express as much as I could to bottle feed my little boy but finding time was tricky!
I gave up at 6 months as I started to worry that my girl was getting all these snuggles whilst I fed her and my boy was is rocker etc and holding his own bottle and I felt they were becoming more aware.
I have friends who had similar problems and exclusively pumped and bottle fed both, but they said it was difficult and I never managed to get much production when pumping.
I think do what you need to get through, the first few months of twins is tough. Amazing but tough

[forcedgeneric]

Glad you are getting some support with it. We are managing well under current system, pumping three times a day gets me enough for the 50%, anything extra i can fit in is a bonus. Having to make sure that i still do bottle feeds for that twin so as not to miss out on all the cuddles. Second the post about the facebook group - really useful info, as my experience so far hcps are a bit shocked at any attempt to breastfeed twins!

So far twins are fab, from birth onwards though there is definitely a lot of 'it's not ideal but it works for us'