I am at my wits end - how the hell do you bottle feed both twins at the same time

[Ewemoo]

My dts are now a month old and have turned into babies from hell. They are by no means placid and when they wake up they immediately scream for food or just pure frustration who knows?? After many attempts at staggering feeding they still seem to wake up at the same time both screaming. How do you manage warming two bottles and keeping the babies calm? I am sure it's not possible but it is doing my head in at the moment. Also how do you manage this situation in the night when your dh needs to sleep and can't help you?

why are you all attacking green monkies. she only suggested breastfeeding!!
i breastfed and bottlefed my twins until i stopped producing at 9 months.
one thing that did help me out was getting two of everything including bottle warmers, made milk a few hours in advanced then reheated when needed. also got those moon cushions and propped one each side, fed in bouncy chairs and car seats or propped in cot with moon pillow.
i know its a difficult time but the best thing for me was getting them into a routine used the contented baby book by gina ford and joined tamba which have an excellent range of booklets on feeding and sleeping.
good luck. hope at least one of my suggestions helps.

To be honest, I NEVER got the hang of feeding them both simultaneously (either breast or bottle). I used to feed one baby for 10mins, then feed the other for 10 mins. Then repeat. They DO get used to it after a while honest... When they get a bit older - about 9 months, as I recall, they can hold the bottle themelves and lif gets sooooooo much easier.

GreenMonkeys - have you got ANY idea how much ready-made formula you would need to keep twins going for a week? And how much it would cost? Ours were getting through approx 14 litres per week at one stage! Approx £30 a week if you buy readymade!

And, while some women manage to breastfeed twins successfully (and hats off to them), I think that if you haven't had multiples yourself, you are in NO position to make your oh-so-helpful comments about how BF-ing would be easier .

Greenmonkeys - not attacking you but I don't agree with a lot of your points. My twins were born without a suck reflex (at 35 weeks) and one twin in particular took until she was about two months old before she had a sufficient suck reflex. So breastfeeding was a bit of a non-starter for me as they just didn't have the strength. I had high ideals about how I was going to exclusively breastfeed my twins, etc., etc. but the reality was totally different - I buckled under the strain of continual feeding, screaming babies who couldn't latch on, and one twin that would take up to an hour and 20 minutes to feed. If you're stuck on a sofa with both resting next to you so you can stroke your cheek you and both babies are effectively imprisoned there for an hour and 20 minutes. What if one baby needed winding? What happened to the twin who was feeding and needed winding with both hands? If I broke off feeding both then my slower twin would just lose interest and the ever-looming threat from the health visitors about poor weight gain and hospital admission felt even stronger.

Your flip that breastfeeding is the answer is all well and good but it ignores the OPs question as to how to bottle feed two babies at the same time. Presumably she's gone past the issue of trying to breast feed? Or perhaps she wasn't able to in the first place? Either way, being a burning advocate for breast feeding is rather missing the point. We all get that breast feeding is great for immunity, straightforward, sterile and saves on the washing up - I personally don't know any twin mother in real life who wouldn't have loved to have breast fed both her babies simultaneously and with ease as we all agree it would have made life infinitely easier - but the reality of twins is that the things that you hoped and imagined you'd do as a mother are often not attained or are compromised.

As for feeding in bouncy chairs, my babies did, when not propped up on sofas. I sat in front of them and smiled at them and cooed over them and they don't seem any the worse for my woeful neglect during feed times. They may not have always fed from me or from my lap, but they were well-loved and adored and got heaps of affection and kisses at every other time. Prop feeding to me was merely a means to an end - not indicative of a hands-off approach to motherhood. It got me through the day when the alternative was struggle on a scale that I just didn't feel able to cope with and it removed the stress of feeding two poor/slow feeders on my own. To be able to relax into motherhood knowing that feedtimes were going to be 'okay' and not a fraught struggle to get 2oz milk down a reluctant baby was a huge help. Feeding in bouncy chairs is okay. It's not the devil's work and babies don't feel neglected because of it.

I say use all the props you can and relax as much as you can. My babies are adored, well-adjusted and happy little girls for all my muddling through in the early days.

K

My SIL/BIL ffed their twins in bouncy chairs / car seats. I can still remember the chaos of their early days, with another toddler in the house too.
Do you know what...they are now nearly 18 and don't seem to have been adversely affected by it at all. They are slim and beautiful, they eat everything, they have no allergies and they are very affectionate and loving.

The objective was to get them fed before they screamed the place down...they got ample love, cuddles, contact at other times, and although I am pro breast feeding I can completely appreciate how BFing twins would be a utter nightmare. Why do some people feel the need to make other mothers feel crap about their choices?

Good luck - enjoy your babies and do whatever you need to to achieve that.

Thanks everybody for all your posts. I expressed while my babies were in scbu for 2.5 weeks and tried bfing but got so down with it I was not doing myself or the babies any good. That out of the way, I am feeling calmer today. I managed to get out of the house just with dd1 to take her swimming. Oh the freedom of just sitting by the pool for half an hour listening to my ipod while she had her lesson! And to think I used to moan about early Saturday morning starts! I felt more normal and it was good to have a break. I would be interested in what the podee bottles are like although have already forked out a small fortune on dr browns bottles. I am finding dummies difficult as they can't keep them in their mouths long enough to stop the screaming. Am I using the right ones or are they just too young to keep a huge dummy in for long? I would really appreciate any tips/memories of how you coped and how/when you turned a corner.

ewemoo, i have almost 4 week old twins as well, i am using doomoos for feeding together as i have a tiny boy who cant yet sit in a bouncer. i sit between the beanbags and sometimes prop up the bottles with blankets on one so i can wind the other one. i have managed to tandem feed on my lap as well by sitting them on my thighs facing outwards. i sometimes only have one that wakes up screaming to be fed though so i can get away with feedig one and then the other. i use powder formula in the day but cartons at night with pre-steralised empty bottles. to me it is worth spending 56p per night not to have to go downstairs in the cold and heat up bottles with one or two screaming babies when DH and my other two children are trying to sleep.

I was not having a pop at feeding choices just pointing out that bottle feeding is not the easy option it is thought to be, suggesting breastfeeding was a serious, practical solution to the OP question, not a sarcastic response.

As it has only been 10 days or so since you stopped bf I'd say going back to it is still a real possibility, seeking some good solid help from LLL/ABM/BfN etc could make all the difference, but I confess I do get frustrated at the apparent ease and speed with which so many people seem to give up on bf or blame it for the fact that they are tired or feeling down etc.

I have two friends who have bf twins, both spent the early weeks finding ways to make it work, neither popped out big easy-latching babies. I have also supported a couple of other mums to establish bf with twins, so I am not being flippant or making suggestions based on a total lack of experience, even though I haven't actually done it myself, if you see what I mean.

But it is not impossible to bf twins, you just need good support, both practical and emotional, from family and professionals, and in general it is this that is lacking, and not lack of love/care/desire etc from the mum. I am not "having a go" I am making a serious suggestion.

Ewemoo. I sypmathise because the early weeks are so hard. I found at six weeks old things got a lot easier and then at 12 weeks we had a massive leap forward. Before then, my second twin who struggled hugely with feeding and would take an hour-plus every feed to drain pathetic amounts of milk suddenly got it. Almost overnight she got stronger and both of them would feed really easily within about 20 minutes. They were easier to settle and around this time started sleeping through the night. On the latter, I know this is very early with twins and certainly for premature twins but just the fact that they were more settled overall made a huge difference. That and the fact that they just seemed to make a big developmental leap in every other area. We got smiles back (rather than poker-faced, rather disappointed stares) which helped and I suddenly got the hang of things. 12 weeks for me and for other twin mummies I know has been the magic mark, although I personally found six weeks in was also a big shift forward.

In the early days I struggled so much. I had PND/PTSD (undiagnosed, so muddling through in total despair ) and all the feeding issues just made everything so much worse. And I didn't have a toddler in the mix either. I remember one particularly desperate evening using a baby medicine syringe to push milk into my twin's mouth; 5ml after 5ml, most of which dribbled back down her chin. I was so desperate to get her to feed and she was just too weak and tired to do it. And somehow, according to the books, I was supposed to be breastfeeding them simultaneously with a happy smile on my face.

It sounds like you are doing really well. If it helps, you've already got through the worst bit and it just gets easier and easier. Small differences day-by-day as they get stronger and then the bigger milestones at 6 weeks, 12 weeks, etc. but you're moving forward. The first two weeks are terrible and you've got beyond that.

As they get stronger they're much quicker to feed and that helps. Try the prop feeding during the day and see how you get on and definitely give the ready-made formula a go.

As for the dummies, it IS difficult early on as they do fall out and you get the screams of outrage. I seemed to be perpetually on dummy duty at this stage. It doesn't last though and they do find their hands and learn to keep it in.

Hang in there. It does get better and I do think you are doing brilliantly.

K

i found at night when they were small to use the cartons which they have at room temp anyway quite dear but we reckoned that it wouldnt be for long and it saves loads of hassle just take some sterlised bottles up with you and add carton when they are needing a feed i used to stress something terrible when they would both scream for food and sometimes i would be crying too but as they get older they wait a bit better plus for me too dummies are a lifesaver. Also when they are older or its too expensive to use cartons take a flask up with you and have bottles already about 1/3 filled with cool boiled water and use one of those dispensers with your powder already measured its much easier and i wish we had dicovered that at 1 month instead of at 4 months!! saves those cold trips to the kitchen 2-3 times a night.

Just wanted to say thanks for posting this, I could have written this myself.

I have prem twins (now 8 weeks old) and I am so struggling with feed times. I couldn't breastfeed for various reasons and so it has to be bottles. I either try ways to get them to feed at the same time (eg car seats didn't work for me) or stress out because I am feeding one and the other one is screaming no matter what I try and do to pacify them. It's hard and I really know what you're going through. I really want to know when they stop screaming for food as soon as they wake or do they always do that?

Thanks for the post and all replies, it's really helpful to hear other people's stories and to realise other people have been or are in exactly the same situation.

Thanks all

Hi ck.How are things today? My dts were very unsettled yesterday evening so I went to bed and left dh to cope until midnight then I took over. Do your dts scream when they're having their nappy changed as well. It seems like they're either feeding or screaming at the moment. I keep trying to tell myself it will get better but it seems like a distant dream tbh. Keep in touch and let me know how things go on.

I found one of those swinging chairs a godsend - one twin goes in that and settles for a while, while you deal with the other one. They are bulky and the music is awful (although my toddler loved it !) - but if you have space it did help (borrowed ours).

I also used to prop mine up on pillows with me in between and a bottle in each hand - there is a knack.

Easiest of all of course is to get someone else to feed the other one.

It does get easier - as you get used to it and they get older.

I was another bouncy seat fan.

I had 2 Baby Borns would bounce with one foot whilst feeding the other,smiling etc at both. Had the seat facing me. If the non fed baby was ravenous he'd have his dummy. Sometimes I manically sang nursery rhymes too which amazingly seemed to sooth the one waiting.

We all got the hang of it after a while,hang in there it does get easier.

I'm looking after a mum and her twins of 12 weeks. Have to agree with kitstwins, that we have turned a big corner! Down to one feed in the night though ocasionally one sleeps through. They are bf but I have given ebm in a bottle by sitting them in bouncy chairs.

I don't think mums of twins or singles do give up bf so easily. Feeling down and tired are not excuses, they are real reasons and should be taken seriously.

I have now worked with 4 sets of twins and each one of them have had their own very different personalities.

Good luck

took me about 3 weeks to suss tandem feeding. Same as you my two would wake at the same time and I couldn't listen to one cry while I fed the other. Now bear in mind I had mine 4 years ago so formula rules and regulations were different.

My DH would make up 12 bottles every evening when he got in from work, so I would just need to go to the fridge and fetch two bottles - i would then boil kettle and half fill two jugs with boiling water, place bottles in. take bottles into lounge and place on conveniently placed coffee table. I would get comfy on sofa, make sure phones and tele remote were within reach and place a cushion to one side of me. I would then retrieve screaming twin 1 from bouncy chair and place on cushion, retrieve screaming twin 2 and place on my lap, feet in my crotch, head by my knees (pillow placed under my knees). I had this timed in such a way that milk would be perfect temp by the time we were comfy. stick bottles in enjoy the instant peace! As for winding, I would do one at a time, place half finished bottle on coffee table, grab twin 1 or 2 by the scruff of his baby grow and put over my shoulder then rub while still feeding the other, then swap!

At night, luckily we had a spare room with a double bed in, so on first murmur, downstairs kettle on, retrieve bottles from fridge, stick in boiling water and heat at same time. back upstairs, fetch one twin at a time from cots, place on double bed surrounded by pillows, go back and fetch the other - sit myself bang in the middle, two pillows either side, bottles in.....wind in the same way. back to bed, leave carnage in the spare room til the morning!

Now if I had twins today and I did everything by the book - no idea!?

"I don't think mums of twins or singles do give up bf so easily. Feeling down and tired are not excuses, they are real reasons and should be taken seriously"

Everyone feels tired when they have small babies, and most people feel down too, baby blues can get you at any time, once the euphoria of birth/new baby or coming home from hospital wears off and the reality takes over from the buzz. To blame any of this on bf is ridiculous. Bf releases endorphins which actually make you feel relaxed and good, and these can go a long way to helping you get through the tough early days.

I have seen/known mums (of singles and twins) spend weeks resolving poor latches and slow weight gain and I have seen other mums try for a few days before switching to formula. Some give up easily, others don't. I find it interesting that people will spend ages resolving formula/bottle feeding problems, but not bf ones. And I am always amazed at how many things bf can be blamed for.

greenmonkies, I agree. I am very pro bf myself but there is a lack of support which is a big issue. My current client had loads of help in the Portland Hospital and I have been on hand most days and nights to support her and help her continue bf. Not everyone has this luxury. Even she has times when she wants to give up, I won't judge her if she does.

GM I know several twin mums including myself,my sister and bfiend.All of us desperately wanted to bfeed and all of us bar one had to give up. None of us gave up easily.

I personally battled on for 6 weeks of pure torture during which I never felt any feelgood endorphins at all. Having twins is completely different to having a singleton newborn I've had both so do actually know. You are up literally all night and your boobs never get any rest,you are worn ragged and baby blues is nowhere near to how you feel. Bfeeding one baby is hard enough for many,two is even harder. To infer we just don't try hard enough to overcome this is rather nasty.

I know as you keep saying on this and other threads there are mums who breeze through feeding twins, merrily tandem feeding and sling carrying. Great I applaude them,of course it's possible and something to aim for but for the vast majority of us this simply isn't the case. Attend any Twins Group and ask around.

Twinmums often feel a lot of guilt as it is as they have to spilt themselves between 2 needy babies to have to read comments like yours is extremely unhelpful. The early days with twins are all about survival and the op wanted help to do that,I don't think your comments are at all helpful you're just using this thread to shout your cause.

Mila, I don't say that you all give up easily or don't try hard enouigh at all. I have seen these struggles first hand, and experienced some of them myself on a smaller scale (with only one baby). I wish people would stop thinking I say things like that, please, read what I have actually written, not what you think every one is saying.

eg;

"I have seen/known mums (of singles and twins) spend weeks resolving poor latches and slow weight gain and I have seen other mums try for a few days before switching to formula. Some give up easily, others don't."

Which of the two examples do you think are the ones who have given up easily, and which category do you put yourself in?

I'd say the ones who only try for a few days give up easily and I'd say (from reading several other messages from you on the subject as well) that you are in the "battle for weeks" category.

And I've also said, here and on many other threads, that the main reason for bf "failure" is the lack of knowledge and support available to new mums, no matter how many babies they have, singleton, twins, triplets or quads!!! In the Netherlands new mums have govt funded help for several weeks after giving birth, we get nothing. I don't think you can call a hurried 10 minute chat with a MW (who probably doesn't know enough about bf and how to support it) effective support. Even in SCBU staff are often keen to give babies dummies and bottles rather than tube feed and allow them to learn to bf properly in thier own time.

There are so many changes that need to be made, too many to list here, and until these kinds of things happen women will be getting rushed out of hospital with badly latching barely feeding babies, who end up with shredded nipples and a sense of complete failure when they can't take any more and turn to formula. It makes me very that this is still happening over and over again, it's no use chanting "Breast is Best" (I hate that phrase) and then not having any real help available once you have your baby.

[puts soap box away and apologises for hijacking thread ]

I didn't manage to breast feed my twins either - they were too small (35 weekers) and I had a toddler to deal with as well. Little blighters never did learn to latch on - so I ended up expressing most of their feed and topping up with formula.

I still had the problem of trying to bottle feed twins like the OP.

the rule with baby twins- you do whatever works for you and totally ignore helpful advice from anyone who hasn't had twins

Sorry GM I missed the some do,some don't bit.

I think I may have been a bit over sensitive about the endorphins bit as being glued to a sofa being chewed to bits in constant pain,split between 2 squealing bundles the endorphins were a bit thin on the ground Having spoke to my twin friends over the years we all felt the same ie wondering where the hell were those endorphins!!!

I agree totally(don't faint)with the last bit of your post. I actually got as little help with latching on with my twins as I did with dd believe it or not. It is an issue for all but I think multiple mums should get extra help in those early days-I certainly didn't. Dsis got more but hers were smaller,she obviously didn't get enough as she lasted only for 6 weeks like me.

Anyhow now whose highjacking!

To the op once you get to 3 months it really does get easier,then at 6 months it all slots into place you even start thinking wow I could do this again-honestly!!!!!!

agree with gm about lack of support as well (at least 6 years ago). No one ever mentioned to me that the suck reflex can take weeks to develop in premmies. Knowing that would have helped.

Just had to post.
Ewemoo- please be reasurred- it really does get easier. I was convinced I wouldn't survive and now my two are nearly a year and when I look back- apart from the first 6 weeks, I can honestly say I have loved the experience. Things that helped us were splitting the nights into shifts. I slept from 8am-1am, then we swapped over. It was hard but it meant we both got good chunks of sleep and anything else was a bonus. Plus we used dummies in the beginning and weaned them off them at about 4 months. Plus had 2 swings- a cheap one and a really fancy one. Both a life saver. Seriously. Then we put them in bouncy seats to feed. My friends with twins all seem to have a slightly different approach and you will work out what is right for you. Do you have a twins group near you? I loved going to mine.
Regarding the breastfeeding issue. Milamae I totally agree with everything you said. You said it much more patiently than I would have. Greenmonkies- I know you don't mean to offend, but yur earlier comments did upset me and porbably others. I still beat myself up for not managing for more than 5 weeks. Seriously I don't think a day goes past when I don't at some point think I should have tried for longer. I wanted and still want the best for my two. At the time, it felt like the best for them was preserving my sanity and trying to get food into them by whatever means we could. Please don't think that people who ditch it at only a few days are giving in to easily. They are not. I don't want to start the whole debate again- but please in future, try to remember what a sensitive issue this is for everyone