are my twins smaller because they have to share my milk?

[MamaChocoholic]

I "know" the answer to this should be no, but having a bit of a wobble in confidence, so need to be sure.

my (bf) dts are 6 mo, and I went to baby weigh in today so I could know just how much baby I have grown myself, as they are just starting solids. just to give myself a pat on the back. the hv was very "oh yes, they're very ready for solids because they're dropping down the centiles" (not really though - both have gone from close to 50th around 10 weeks to between 9th and 25th now). coupled with this my dp is convinced they are not as big as they would have been were they singles because they are sharing my milk (ds1 went from 50th centile at birth to around 98th by 3 months and has stayed there, now 3yo).

so, any evidence that bf twins don't grow more slowly than singles so I can stop wobbling?

To answer the thread title.
No.
Its just the way they are, some twins are wildly different to each other in size, some are similar, some are small, some are large.....

I was a titchy bf baby. My younger sisters who were bf twins were gigantanormous. We are all the same size now.

So unlikely to be anything to do with your milk and a very unhelpful comment from your HV. Readiness for solids is not indicated by size or growth. Frankly if they were growing more slowly because they were not getting enough food from you I think they would probably tell you - I have noticed my daughter gives off subtle cues when she is really hungry such as ear-splitting screaming.

Most women have a huge capacity for milk making - the baby drives the supply (or in your case, babies :)). No one has to 'share' anything. Your dp does not understand that breastmilk supply is actually dynamic, not a fixed quota.

Your dts' weight pattern is well within normal. Plenty of babies follow this, dropping down from the 50th to the 9th - and yours have not even gone that far. A fall of up to 2 centile spaces is considered unremarkable - no cause for concern.

I think you definitely deserve the pat on the back! Bfing is hard enough, and you have done very well to bf twins -well done.

As Tiktok says, it is normal for some babies to drop centiles - my dd2 went from the 50th percentile to off the bottom of the chart (but she never actually lost weight), despite the fact that I had enough milk for triplets. It's just the way that some babies are made.

I'm just impressed you've breastfed 2 for 6 months! You should be feeling very very proud of yourself.

In a word: NO :)

It's like love. Your twins dont have to share your love do they - it just doubles because you have two :o

As everyone else has said NO,

But I just had to say well done for BF twins, that's fab. :-)

Lovely way of putting it FreudianSlippery .

Two babies
Two boobs
That's one each by my calculations- not sharing anything.

You deserve a gold medal MamaC for getting this far- your HV should have recognised that.

BTW- (slight hijack sorry) my cousin is having twins in the summer, do you have any top tips for bfing twins? Was there one book that you read that was particularly useful?

thanks for all the reassurance and some lovely comments. I should say it's not that big a deal: it really hasn't been hard to bf these two - much easier than with my ds1. we've been really lucky and my only challenges have been my own (and other people's) lack of confidence and eating enough chocolate.

crikey mothering multiples is a good book if there's a chance the twins may come early, it deals with a lot of the issues faced by mums of twins in nicu. otherwise my tips would be:

to get a good bf pillow for the early days when you need to either feed together or have one near you while you feed the other and have two hands free to help with latch. I used the EZ2nurse. fantastic, but a bit claustrophobic.

experiment with positions, particularly learn ways to feed two lying down/sleeping - see Karen Gromada's site. use their babygrows to hoik them about one handed when the other hand is occupied with the other baby.

be prepared for extreme hunger/thirst, and get her dp on board to help with food/older children (same as with one baby, but once wedged under two babies it can be actually impossible rather than just difficult to get up to the kitchen).

everything with twins is more intense. 7 hour twin cluster feeds will pass and surviving them is a badge of honour :)

and tell her bf doesn't have to be hard. I have found having twins bloody hard at times, but feeding them has been the easiest part of it.

didn't realise I had so many, sorry!

Ah, that's fantastic MamaC- some really great tips that I'll pass on.

Thanks so much .

Oh, just one more question sorry, - do you feed on cue or is it easier with twins to feed to a schedule as much as you can?

In the early days I definitely fed constantly on cue. Now I try and offer before and after each nap, and if they're grouchy in between. I (sometimes quite intensely) dislike feeding them together, although I know other mums who love it. If I feed one whilst the other is hungry, they are now aware enough that the hungry one gets upset waiting and watching the other feed. So now I try and avoid them getting too hungry, and offer at least once every two hours. They only feed for a few minutes at a time though, so it's not a big deal to offer so often.

But I'm not a schedule kind of person. I try and make sure they nap if they've been awake two hours, I try and encourage them to nap at the same times (as each other, not from day to day, doesn't always work), and we always start bedtime at the same time. That's as much routine as we can cope with.

Good luck to your cousin!

Thanks again for the info- she doesn't have any other DC, so it's going to be a big shock learning curve I'd imagine.