to not tell my friend that it's okay to stop breastfeeding?

[Litchick]

My friend has ten week old twins and is on her knees. She is so exhausted that she has stopped driving in case she crashes the car.
She is giving very loud hints that she would like to give up breast feeding so that her DP and other friends and family can share the load. Getting up six times a night to feed is beyond a joke.
Everyone is saying she shouldn't give up and that she's been a 'marvel' etc but as I have been there and worn this tee shirt she is really looking to me for advice.
As a mother of twins myself I totally feel for her and I gave up breast feeding for precisely the same reason but I'm really nervous to say so as giving up is so final. Also my twins have allergies and I often wonder if I'd just gone on longer...aaahhh.
I don't want to project my own regrets onto her but nor do I want to make her feel 'forced' to carry on.
What does anyone else think?

help her in other ways.
if she has carried on for ten weeks, she is really doing marvelously.
vacuum her house for her. offer to do the chopping. drive the car. etc etc.

What a lovely friend you are to be so worried about her. As a someone who tortured herself for months for stopping BF (I still worry about it now), its got to be her decision and all you can do is support her and talk to her.

She deserves a medal for carrying on this long if she is that exhausted and give her a hug from me!

Litchick, at least one thing, you are offering her support and advice.

When I had my dts I had no one to turn to and no support. I felt like a complete failure because my milk only lasted a little while and I had to suppliment it with formula. It was crushing and even now, 6 1/2 years later I still feel that sense of failure. I didn't know about Mumsnet then and was so isolated. In fact I was discouraged to breastfeed, almost as if I shouldn't have bothered in the first place and the midwives etc. gave me no advice or help, not even a leaflet - I was left to it and perhaps if I hadn't been I would have managed longer.

To just have had someone say that it was okay, no everyone is successful but at least I tried. To just have someone say that would have been everything. Looking back I wish I had expressed my milk rather than try and b'feed as dts1 didn't take to it that well and I found it easier but the staff in the ward had the attitude that he should just take bottle and that was that - like an idiot I listened to them.

So be there for her and tell her it does get easier - well, until they start to talk, then she'll suffer from headaches over the constant chatter and questions.

I can't offer advice on feeding twins, but have huge respect for anyone who manages it for any length of time. I suspect it's a whole different ballgame to 'just' feeding the one.

I bf ds exclusively for nearly a year. He has never had formula. He has had pretty bad eczema. Surely if there was a close link, he wouldn't have suffered. Don't beat yourself up about your twins' allergies etc. I suspect most of it is genetic and if it's programmed in, they'll have problems, regardless of how you feed them. Give yourself a break!

A friend of mine came to visit with her dt's (they were 9 months and she'd stopped bf at all at 7 months after expressing for months as they were 7 wks prem and then doing some supplementing. She STILL felt guilty months later about not keeping going to a year! I chatted to her about it and we worked out that statistically she was probably one of 5% of people who had bf twins for that long. She had a huge smile on her face, and I've reminded her since so she takes pride in what she did do and not what she 'failed at' (her words, not mine). If your friend gives up, she needs to feel good about it - perhaps that's what you can help her with? And if she thinks she can manage longer, then knowing she's part of a select group might motivate her a little longer.

I'm expecting dt's now, I'm going to try and remember my own advice.

Pazza, a kg a week OMG!

I am BFing twins, they are 11 weeks old and one of them is sleeping through the night now. Feeding 6 times a night is not normal at that age imo.

Is she feeding them enough in the day? She shouldn't let them go more than 3hrs without a feed, waking them if necessary. Could she express in the mornings and let her mum/dh do a night feed? That has been what has kept me going. If she has done every single feed since they were born I am not surprised she is on her knees.

There are lots of things to try. Advise her on those things rather than whether to give up or not. Then she can decide whether to try those things or whether she has reached the end of the road.

gina ford's contented house with twins is a good book for her to read.

at 10 weeks post partum i had prety bad PND, and insisted on feeding my colicy, refluxy baby despite my exhustion and post c-section pain, even though i hated it, as my prenatal teacher had told me formula was terrible for babies. my mum (mother of twins, c-section) persuaded me to let her give a pumped bottle, and I slept the best 5 hour sleep of my life, and so did my son! He was on formula by six months, and I was a happier mummy! If your friend wants permission please give it!

Can her DH/mum give her a day in bed once a week - they can bring the babies to her when they need feeding and let her sleep the rest of the time. That will help if fatigue is causing a low milk supply. She will be feeding the street after a day in bed. She definitely needs to rest lots or her supply will be low which may be why they are still waking loads in the night.

Please let us know how she gets on. I really hope she can carry on.

Its not for you to give permission for her to give up. My advice would be to let her know how you felt and follow it by telling her to do what she feels is best. I've found it difficult bf 1 baby for the last 4mths so IMO she has done fantastic giving them the start they've had. You can maybe make her see that it will get easier, especially when solids are introduced, which could be at 4mths, so only 7wks to persevere.(Although I did at 13wks because my dd2 fed every 1-1.5hrs.)

Message withdrawn

haven't read the whole thread, so sorry if this repeats what others have said.
I bf my dts exclusively till they were about 5 mths (was before the term blw, but we got to the point where it seemed silly snatching the food out of their hands...they were always on our laps when dp and me were eating...)
Allergies were mentioned, and this was my big motivation to exclusively bf. One dt had excema from early weeks, went on to have asthma and nut allergy and poor thing still suffers now (16yrs), other dt completely free of allergies. So I don't know if bf saved dt2 or not, but dt1s allergies could hardly have been worse, tbh. But I did feel that I gave it my best shot (though still room to feel guilty about eating peanuts while pregnant...so if I was talking to the op's friend, I would pass that on for her to make of what she will.
Of course it is exhausting, having twins is exhausting, esp if you have a toddler too. At nights they were in with us at first,then later dp would always bring them to me. During the day, if one fed the other fed too, I would only feed them individually about 1 a day. I would aggree that she shouldn't be trying to do much else but feed, sleep and feed herself in early weeks, her partner, family and friends should be making this possible.
The other thing I would say is that, like any bf journey IT GETS EASIER...she is putting in the effort now and will reap the rewards later, once established bf is much easier than ff (IMO) and babies will feed quickly and more efficiently.
I remember also, that some of the meant-to-be-non-judgmental support I got, I actually found undermining- hv etc and my mum, saying 'oh you poor thing you look exhausted, why not just give then 1 bottle at night etc etc'...what would have been more helpful would have been someone saying,'yes, it's hard but if you want to do it you can'.
I guess it all depends what she wants to do, but my experience was that there seemed no communal experience of succesfully bf twins that I could draw on, so I had to rely on will power alone! So tell this Mother, it can be done if she wants to do it

The poor thing, I really feel for her! I mixed fed my twins for 6 months - I really think it can be done much more successfully with twins than a single baby as your body is producing so much milk.

If I hadn't introduced formula, I would have given up breast-feeding after a few weeks. I was just too tired from very little help, complications with my section, no sleep, no time to eat and drink enough,to produce the milk needed.

I had lots of people telling me to keep on with just breastfeeding, including DH who was very anti-formula. But I'm firmly convinced the girls would have had far less breastmilk if I'd tried to just breast-feed and that I was well on my way to PND from exhaustion.

I think no one can know except twin mothers how tired, how miserable you can feel and how guilty at the same time. When you've been up 6 times to feed that night and you haven't slept more than a few hours for weeks and you can't imagine life ever being any different.

I co-slept with my girls for the first few weeks but was too worried about rolling on them in an exhausted sleep. I had to sit up to feed them, to get all the pillows in place and I think that's another massively restricting factor in feeding twins, you can't just sit down anywhere/feed anywhere - you often need copious pillows and people nearby at first to take the babies on and off.

I remember so clearly feeling I needed "permission" to stop, even though so many friends with just one baby had given up much more quickly. I felt incredibly guilty the first formula feed they had, but they then slept for 3 hours, so did I and for the first time in ages I was actually full of milk by the next feed rather than crying because my breasts were pratically empty.

I also could only tandem feed, the girls always seemed to need feeding around the same time - and I found that incredibly isolating as I certainly didn't feel comfortable sitting pretty much topless in front of most people, so I could hardly get out of the house.

I think you should tell her you gave up for the same reasons - she will still ultimately make her own decision - but at least it will be an enormous comfort to her. She may well be battling along with people saying to her that you carried on and feeling that therefore so should she..she needs to know that it's okay to give up if she wants to and to just make that decision and stick with it.

It is hard that you are her only source of twin advice, but I found I felt 10x more miserable talking to friends who had just had singletons, every one seemed more rested, more together and more to be enjoying their baby than me - I loved my babies but I didn't have time to enjoy them!

She needs to rest and to start to enjoy her babies. With mixed feeding I managed to start to recover a little bit, express much more successfully, get out of the house a little and even increase my milk supply back to where two thirds of the milk supply was my own. I think mixed feeding with twins is often misunderstood and that it doesn't dry up your milk supply - there's so much bad advice around it.

Absolutely hoochiemamma of course it's a very individual thing from mother to mother.

But hopefully it would be worth a try, if the mother wants to carry on breast-feeding to some extent, rather than completely giving up?

I would tell her that she has done amazingly well to bf for 10 weeks but let it be her decision to stop or continue.

Thank you everyobe so much.
I went to see my friend and had a great chat ( after I'd washed, dried and ironed everything in the house - also arrived with a boot full of goodies .)
I was totally honest with her and tried to explain why I have been so reluctant to say it was okay for her to stop. Of course I ended up crying and she ended up comforting me. Why does that always happen with great mates?
We googled everything we could find on breast feeding multiples and eventually she decided to mix feed.
I stopped the night and her DP and I bottle fed the twins while she slept - they actually ended up only having one apeice and then slept well.
Her DP was a bit sniffy with me - he really wanted her to exclusively bf - but she had a lovely sleep.

I bet she feels fab now . Hopefully mixed feeding will work out for her.

That's great news. I think if she had reached such a state of exhaustion it's great she's come to a decision. What a great support you've been for your friend, well done .

mixed feeding will probably be the best for her. I cannot imagine trying to keep going with twins and BF. Men just have no idea how much it takes out of you.

Better she mix feeds for longer then falls over with exhausion and gives up totally

You are a lovely lovely friend. What a lovely thing to do for someone!

Don't give advice. She will blame you if she later regrets following your advice, whatever it is. You can give sympathy, offer practical help, information.

Are you and your friend members of TAMBA? If your friend is still bf, she might benefit from talking to a counsellor from one of the bf organisations, NCT, La Leche League, ABM etc.