The big old breastfeeding extravaganza

This post is a somewhat rambling reflection on my 15 month breastfeeding experience.  I included some headings to break it up a bit, so feel free to scroll.  There are also links at the bottom to a few other posts on more specific breastfeeding related topics.

The End

Breastfeeding Michael and Sophie came to an end last week.  We were down to the one feeding before bed for about a month, and after our recent road trip during which Mike and I wanted bedtimes to go smoothly, I dropped that last feeding with bittersweetness.

Surprisingly Sophie was the one who was not at all happy to be put in her crib without that bedtime feeding.  Michael laid right down looking up at the ceiling, waiting calmly for sleep.  Sophie cried furiously, and I took her back out of the crib.  I couldn't bear the idea of the end of the breastfeeding experience being painfull for any of us.  Mike grabbed  Michael, we all read some books together, and Sophie and Michael drank some milk from sippies. When we laid them back down, Sophie cried again, but not as intensely.  I was a little bummed out by that and left Mike inside while I went outside to clean up some yard projects.  When I came back in about ten minutes later, she was out.  We had survived.

The next night was better.  Sophie still cried, but it was the moaning kind of cry they both do occasionally when they're just very tired.  She was out within a few minutes.  Night after night, the new normal has sunk in for all of us.

This was the end of quite a journey.

The Beginning

Aside from hearing them both cry out loud for the first time and seeing their little Michael and Sophie faces, my proudest moment of their first day of life was when we attempted the first feeding.  With pillows propped around me and sitting up in bed, Michael and Sophie were brought to my sides.  We stripped them down to their teensy newborn diapers to keep them awake and alert and to get that beneficial skin-to-skin contact.

With all I'd read about latching difficulties and the challenges of breastfeeding newborn twins, these two little champs surprised me by knowing just what to do.  The nurses helped me get started, and soon, after Sophie and Michael had been out of my body for about an hour, there we were, connected again.

The lactation consultant visited later on and urged us to get pictures when she witnessed a tandem feeding the next day in near amazement.  We didn't follow her suggestion, but the pride I feel now, having breastfed twins for nearly 15 months, makes a boob shot seem less nuts than it did at that time.  As I find myself saying a lot these days when a camera isn't handy for a milestone moment, committing some things to memory is just better.

Tandem Feeding

At home I started using my Ez-2-Nurse twins breastfeeding pillow. These days when people say, "I don't know how you do it," I say "We just do." In the beginning, even if they did't mean it literally, I told people about the pillow. It deserves a good amount of credit for the success of this breastfeeding experience as well as our general sanity while juggling the needs of two newborns. 

Tandem feeding became trickier as the babies got bigger.  I had to move to the floor with pillows propped under the ends to prevent the pillow from bending under their weight at around the eight-month mark.  By the time they were 10-months-old, I was feeding Michael and Sophie one at a time.  I didn't love the time this change added to the process, especially in the morning before work.  It also made it complicated to breastfeed without another adult around to keep the unfed one busy.  However, it was fantastic to have that time one on one with Michael and Sophie.

The Supply

In the hospital we were told to start supplementing each feeding with two ounces of formula to bring their weights back up (they tend to drop in the first day or so). Supplementing was a huge pain, especially multiple times in the middle of the night.  Luckily it didn't negatively impact my supply.  This only went on for the first week or two (details from that time are fuzzy) until the pediatrician said Michael and Sophie had gained enough weight to nix the supplementing.  Thank goodness!

Day and night I breasfed every two hours for the first month, twelve times every day, never getting more than an hour or so of sleep at a time.  In the second month we gradually stretched the time bewteen feedings to three hours, and by the time they were four months old, Michael and Sophie nursed every four to five hours.  Every additional hour was a huge relief!

At that point the new school year started, and I went back to work. The babies ate at 6:00 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 2:30 p.m., 6:30 p.m. before bed, and 3:00 a.m (until they started sleeping through the night at around 5-6 months).  I breastfed first thing in the morning and last thing at night and pumped at work midmorning and as soon as we got home in the afternoon to make up for the two 6 oz. bottles (24 oz. total) while we were apart.  Eventually I asked the child care center and my mom to push that 2:30 p.m. feeding to 3:30 so I could breastfeed instead of pump, and that worked fine.  Again, this was a great relief to only have to pump 12 oz. a day.

My supply was adequate before I returned to work, but pumping is just not as effective as breastfeeding, so I didn't always produce the full 8-16 oz. with the pump that the babies needed in their bottles.  Sometimes I pumped before I went to bed and added that milk to the next day's bottles.  Sometimes I dipped into the freezer stash I built up over the summer to make up the difference.  Eventually an occasional bottle of formula here and there, about one feeding a week, was needed to get us through. 

I did notice that I produced more on days:

• after a weekend or longer vacation from pumping
• when I drank lots and lots and lots of water
• after I had gotten a good night's rest
• when I used my hands-free pumping bustier
• when I'd had a dinner with red meat as the main course the night before (this is just one I noticed but never read about in breastfeeding literature)

While I can't say I never stressed over maintaining my supply and keeping up with the babies once I returned to work, I never tried any galactagogues (fenugreek, blessed thistle, alfalfa, etc.) and kept extra pumpings to a minimum.  I don't mind pumping itself, but the cord, the hoses, the pump and bottle parts, the freezer bags, the cleaning and restocking of all supplies really annoyed me.  Avoiding that was worth some bottles of formula and an asterisk in my mind when I claimed to exclusively breastfeed.

Solids

When Michael and Sophie turned four-months-old, again around the time I returned to work, we introduced solids into their diet at the pediatrician's recommendation.  We started with good ol' brown rice cereal about one hour after I breastfed them in the morning. 

At around six months, we gave them a jar of first foods (or a homemade version) about an hour after their 3:30 feeding (like a dinner).  Eventually we added the first foods to the rice cereal meal in the morning and then another solid feeding about and hour after their mid-morning breastmilk (like a lunch).  When they turned one, we began considering these three solid feedings their breakfast, lunch, and dinner and dropped the breasmilk one feeding at a time by replacing it with a sippy of organic whole cow's milk.  I dropped one feeding every couple of weeks or so.  There was no method to that, just what felt right.

Speaking of supply, solid foods did make it tougher to produce enough milk.  Luckily around this time it was appropriate to drop their bottles down to four ounces each instead of six, so I only had to pump 8 oz. a day.

A helpful resource during this time was the book Super Baby Food, a thoughtful gift from a healthy-eating, good friend.  Mike took the lead on making homemade baby food such as organic sweet potatoes, peas, carrots, squash, avacado, bananas, and apples.  He'd have to give you the specific details, but this entailed steaming or baking the harder foods (fruits were typically raw) and pureeing the food in the food processor.  He froze the mashed-up produce in ice trays, popped the cubes out into freezer bags to free up the trays, and took out what we needed a day in advance.  He thawed the cubes in individual baby food cups (ones from store-bought food) sometimes with water to thin it down.  I rarely refill the diaper drawer or empty the diaper pail, and I hardly had to put any thought into where the babies' next homemade organic meal would come from.  My husband is just cool like that.

These days Michael and Sophie eat what we eat (in bite-sized pieces) for the most part.  Tonight we all had whole grain pasta with sauteed zucchini and tomato, olives, artichoke hearts, prociutto, feta cheese, rice wine vinegar, and olive oil.  I usually think they're pretty lucky little toddlers.

Weight Loss

Thanks to breastfeeding I lost all of my pregnancy weight and then some.  My clothes fit horribly all school year and I pinned the waists of my pants knowing this isn't likely to last. Now that I'm responsible for burning my own calories again, I'm glad I didn't go out and buy too many size 2's.  I'm still about 10 lbs. below my pre-pregnancy weight.  I'll do my best to keep it that wway.

Blockages and Candida

If you've read this far thinking, "Ok, she's talking all about her boobs, but it's not so bad," you might want to stop here.  This is stuff only breastfeeding moms and those in the medical community would really care about.  The purple nipple part is sort of funny, though.

With each dropped feeding came a blockage in my left breast.  My advice to anyone who develops a blockage is to address it as immediately as you can.  I found that taking a hot shower, massaging the lump, applying a heating pad for roughly 45 minutes just before a feeding, and putting my most aggressive eater (Michael) to work did the trick.  I didn't act as quickly the first time as I did for subsequent blockages, and it took a few tries to get the works flowing smoothly again.

A week or so after starting Michael on antibiotics for an ear infection and just after a blockage came clear, I experienced a seering pain in my left breast.  If it hadn't always been my better producer, Lefty would really have been on thin ice with me.  I did some research online and self-diagnosed myself with a bacterial (candida) infection.  I endured the pain for about a month while trying every over-the-counter remedy I could find--vinegar, grapefruit seed extract, Lotrimin, gentian violet.  Each of these remedies helped a tad but never cleared up the issue.  The gentian violet also stained my nipple a dark purple and scared Sophie into a screaming mess when she saw it!  I fed Michael with that breast in the dark until the color went away.

Because there were no visible symptoms, just that pain after feeding, and because some online comments said nothing prescribled solved the problem either, I was hesitant to bother with a trip to the doctor.  However, I was taking Tylenol and going to bed early to escape the pain every night.  And like I said, I didn't want breastfeeding to end painfully for any of us, even physically.

Ultimately my doctor concurred with my self-diagnosis and gave me a prescription for Diflucan.  I wish she could have just prescribed it over the phone, but she wanted to do an exam to be sure I didn't have mastitis.  I could hardly believe it, but I took my first dose less than an hour before a feeding, and the seering pain never returned.  Long story short, go to the doctor.

Thinking Back

This ending brings me pride, relief, and a whole lot of sentimentality.  I always thought it was pretty goofy when breastfeeding mothers talked about how much they enjoyed the experience.  I am now one of those goofy moms, remembering the challenges and the tender moments, and cherishing the complex dimension of my motherhood they both created.

Other posts you might find useful...

Those Notorious First Few Weeks
From Mommy to Moo Juice
How did Grandma do it?

You can also click the "breasfeeding" label in the left panel to see all of my posts that relate to the topic.

My inner SAHM is satisfied.

Remember this?  I think it's time for a follow-up.

My worst fears about being a working mom in the babies' first year:

I would miss too much of their infancy.  The number one thing that helped me with that fear is remembering the first few months I spent at home with Michael and Sophie and how, no matter how much I held them or played with them, no matter how often I kissed them and snuggled them, I never felt what I was reaching for.  I learned that this love I have for Michael and Sophie means there just is no ENOUGH.  Home or away, that feeling is there.

An hour in the morning, several hours in the afternoon, weekends, and school breaks usually gave us a generous amount of time to play, reach milestones, and just live our lives together as a family.  But when I did find that I was feeling a sense of loss or sensed the babies wanted more time with me, I'd take a day off.  Spending a day in our jammies, living the daily routine of meals, diapers, play, and naps together always seemed to get us back in sync.

They would be unhappy or unsafe.  During a pick-up in their last week at child care before summer, Michael peeked out at me from a big climbing cube that he loves playing inside.  He was giggling and clearly wanted to share this treasure with me.  I started to feel bad about all he'll miss when he's at home with Sophie and me this summer.  How backwards is that?  But both he and Sophie have a ton of fun everyday at the center.  They learned to play and socialize with other kids in addition to the themed weekly lessons (I recently discovered they picked up more sign language than I realized), eat meals that set a standard of health we struggle to match at home, play on a fancy-schmancy playground, and are loved and known by their caregivers.  Obviously Michael and Sophie will be more than happy at home, but that flipside of my mommy guilt says something about how happy I know they have been this school year.

For two days a week my mom has also come to care for Sophie and Michael.  They have come to adore their grandma, and I'm comforted knowing there is another adult they feel so close to.  I had a similar bond with my own grandma, so I know I've actually given something to Michael and Sophie by providing this time.

As far as safety, I will always find something to worry about, but I know Michael and Sophie have been in the best possible hands.

Our bond would weaken.  My favorite moment of a work day was when Michael and Sophie noticed I had returned to them.  Often they would spot me kicking off my shoes through their classroom window or would hear me coming in the door at home.  But everytime their smiles were huge, typically accompanied by a squeal or two and an attempt to get to me as quickly as possible.

When company comes over or when we go somewhere new, Sophie in particular tends to turn into a spider monkey, clinging all fingers around the sleeves of my shirt and squeezing my sides with her knees, letting me know that holding her is the only option.  I don't love her anxiety and actually hoped that being in child care would prevent that, but I do love that I'm often the only person she wants in those moments.  Sorry, Mike, but I think that's how it's supposed to be.

These are just moments when I can see our bond is as strong as ever.  More importantly, I feel it.

They would be sick all the time.  Before going into child care, Michael and Sophie never even had the sniffles.  Since September there have been a number of colds and fevers, a case of pink eye, a couple ear infections, and many, many sniffles.  Overall, it hasn't been too bad, but there were a couple of rough weeks. 

There was one pretty bad bug that had nearly all of the other babies out of the infant room for a few days, but that passed Michael and Sophie by, thank goodness.  Perhaps there is something to the antibodies in breastmilk?

It would be too much stress.  Speaking of breastmilk, the absolute hardest part of the working mom lifestyle was breastfeeding and pumping.  Carting around all the gear, making time at work, getting to Michael and Sophie quickly enough in the afternoon, making sure I produced enough, and cleaning up and restocking for the next day was all pretty tough.  But with every dropped feeding it got easier and easier, and it was worth all the trouble.

It would be a financial mistake. Quality child care is crazy expensive, no question about it.  Fortunately I make a tad more than child care costs, and that tad came in pretty handy this year.  If I had stayed home, our finances would have been extremely tight, and I'm glad we had the flexibility to provide for our family's needs.

I would regret my decision.  I don't.  This was a great year.  I felt connected to my babies, was fully present with them in all of our time together, was able to provide for their needs, and am proud that I did it all as a breastfeeding, working mom.  In addition, I enjoyed a fulfilling year as a teacher (all politics and financial difficulties beyond my classrom aside) and look forward to the years like this one to come.

Annuale on my mind

There are a lot of benefits to breastfeeding beyond being healthy for the babies.  It's easier in many ways and less expensive than formula.  It burns a ton of calories, and...well, let's just say now that I'm only nursing twice a day, one of the other perks has recently expired.  Here's a hint.



Twenty-two months, people.  Twenty-two months.  Keep my family in your prayers.  : )

From Mommy to Moo Juice

Instead of breastfeeding them at eleven o'clock this morning, I gave Sophie and Michael sippy cups of half breastmilk, half whole cow's milk.  I sat beside them, touched their faces, said what a good job they were doing, and we all did well.

I was under the impression that breastfeeding for the first year was the norm, but I had a remarkably tough time finding advice on how to ween at this age. There's a lot out there about one extreme or the other, either weening in the very early months and introducing bottles, or baby led weening which tends to start around 18 months or older (often much older).     

Advice that I did collect was to ween right to sippy cups rather than bottles, drop one feeding per week (starting with the "least favorite"), and replace that feeding with milk and possibly a snack like Cheerios or crackers for a diversion. Since common wisdom at the moment is to hold off on cow's milk until babies are a year old, one year seemed to be the time to put this into action.

Aside from just being culturally brainwashed, I've chosen to stop nursing at one year for a number of reasons.  For one, breastfeeing is just not as easy to manage as it was when Michael and Sophie were smaller.  Tandem feeding is trickier as they don't fit as well on their double nursing pillow, and neither child is terribly patient when I feed his or her sibling first.  I can rig up extra pillows around me and tandem feed in a pinch, but then there's the issue of ear and face grabbing.  Add in the fact that I've never loved pumping, especially at work, and the stress of getting to the child care center or home in time for the 3:30 p.m. feeding, and one can imagine that part of me is relieved to approach the end of this phase.  Michael and Sophie's first birthday and my week off for spirng break are nearly simultaneous this year, confirming once again that the one year mark is right for us.

Even with some routines in place, today's attempt didn't go perfectly.  When I'm at work, Michael and Sophie get warm breastmilk in bottles while resting in Boppys.  They've also become experts at drinking water from sippy cups with snacks, and they've had a little bit of breastmilk from them.  So today I put Michael and Sophie in the Boppys that they're used to feeding in, but the cold temperature of the drink, the sippy cups for this purpose, and the cow's milk were all changes for them.  Sophie did really well, but Michael only drank about one of the six ounces before handing the sippy to me and climbing in my lap.  After offering it to him a few more times unsuccessfully, I put the milk in a bottle instead, and he did great.  However, when Sophie saw the bottle, she wanted one too.  It looks like we'll have to take this in phases.  Maybe by Friday they'll  be drinking just whole cow's milk from sippy cups.  We'll see.

There are three more feedings to drop, and we'll play it by ear a bit as to how quickly we'll go through his process.I'm looking forward to the relief this transition will bring, but I'm also glad that this will not be an overnight event.

One eventful work week

MONDAY
On Mondays my mom watches Sophie and Michael, and when I came home from work she said she hadn't seen Sophie so moody in her entire five-month life.  And Sophie stayed that way, alternating between grumpily crying to be held and hanging out contentedly, for most of the night.  Mike and I attributed that to teething, getting over the first little cold she and Michael shared, and her just being a baby--literally.

TUESDAY
On Tuesday the daycare left a message on my cell phone that Sophie had a low fever and a light rash.  After talking to her caregiver, a nurse at the pediatrician's office, and her daddy, I arranged for Mike to take her in to the doctor midday.

Sophie was diagnosed with a virus (a cold, really), and Mike was told to just keep her home and to keep an eye on her for the rest of the day.  He brought Michael home at that point as well, and I stayed at work for a teacher's meeting, taking over baby duty (and doodie) once home so Mike could be available for a conference call that evening. 

Sophie slept uncharacterisically on my chest for hours, raising her head periodically to cry a tired and miserable cry for her pesky pacifier.  Michael also slept off the last of his cold in a Rock and Play Sleeper next to us, both waking up happily just before their last feeding of the night.  I read Sophie and Michael a story before bed, and they were both full of sweet smiles and coos.  Cuddling did us all some good.

WEDNESDAY

Michael fingerpainting an apple at the child care center

(sent to us in the daily email).

Two great achievements occured on Wednesday.  One, I worked it out with the daycare to have them hold off on feeding the babies their afternoon bottles for as long as possible so I could try to pick them up and feed them myself.  This routine is working on the days my mom is with Sophie and Michael, and it saves me from pumping a second time at work.  And we did it!  I left work as soon as I'm contractually allowed (instead of staying to pump), picked up my buds, and fed them at home.  I even had time to do the unloading routine beforehand.

Let me describe the second achievement this way.  Next Wednesday we will all leave from a dusty, dirty home and return to a clean one.  I even negotiated for a better deal than we were initially quoted for this bi-weekly cleaning service.  Wednesday rocked!

THURSDAY
My mom is a church music director and had a funeral to play on Thursday morning, so we arranged for Mike's mom to watch the babies instead.  I called home on my prep hour to be sure all was going well, and it was.  Gail brought her best friend Carol along, and they were having a great day.

After the call I started pumping as I always do, with my nursing cover over me in my empty classroom with the door closed and locked.  In the first few weeks I even hung a sign saying, "Do not enter.  Testing in progress," to further prevent any intrusions.  Had I done that on this particular day, I still don't think I would have prevented what transpired next.

I heard what any teacher would know to be a fight in the hallway.  This was not during passing time, so it wasn't accompanied by the chaos of a big audience, but I heard banging into lockers, a slap, and a girl yell "Oh, my God!"  Entangled in tubes and cords and with bottles of milk dangling from me, I knew I couldn't get to the commotion quickly enough, so I sent out an urgent email to the administrators and the office secretaries.   It said, "I believe I just heard a fight outside of my classroom.  I couldn't go out there."

Moments later there was a knock.  "Sorry, I can't come to the door," I answered.  Another knock.  Again, "Sorry, I can't come to the door."  I realized at this point that I should have just said what I was doing in my email.  I consider all three administrators to be friends, but only the school principal is female.  I knew the odds weren't good that it would be she who would soon be in my room.  I heard keys, the handle jiggling, more keys, and the door opened.  It was one of the dudes, of course.  He looked confused, I told him I was pumping, he apologized, and sent in the principal.  I told her what I heard, she also apologized, and I told her I was fine, totally covered, just sorry if I embarrassed anyone else.

Throughout the rest of the day I learned that the administrators frantically searched the halls, unsure if I was in my English classroom or the one where I teach art, and they thought for sure I was being held hostage in my room when I didn't open the door...oh, the times in which we live.  After looking at camera footage from the halls and seeing nothing distinguishable as a fight, my bosses are certain the stress of juggling twins and my job is getting to me. 

In all seriousness, I know what I heard.  I wish I was wrong, but I'm worried about those mystery students...

FRIDAY
I was out the next day with the school administrators and some other teachers to do some school improvement work, and I think all awkwardness from the pumping event has been dealt with.  In fact, despite everyone's attempts to be mature, I'm counting on some good jokes to come from this over beers one day.

This meeting, however, took place offsite at a college.  I stepped out mid-morning to pump in my car and all was great until I realized, because this meeting was catered by the college, that I didn't have my insulated lunch bag to store the milk in.  My solution was to get a plastic shopping bag from the college bookstore (just steps from our conference room), but I instead found a $5 insulated bag to buy.  Mainly I just didn't want anyone to go into the conference room fridge for a pop and discover a bottle of my bodily fluids starting back at them, so I put the bottle in this bag inside the refrigerator.  Remarkably, I even remembered to take it home.

Feeding the babies after picking them up from daycare worked out again, and I spent the evening on my own with them.  Mike was invited to dinner with his bosses and the company's president, and we're in favor of that kind of thing.  We all went to bed early and appreciated the end of one eventful work week.

Those Notorious First Few Weeks

For probably the third time that night, I heard one of the babies crying through the monitor on my bedside table. This was sometime within those notorious first few weeks with the babies. Mike and I had developed our nighttime feeding system that continues to this day in which he gets up to change diapers, and I go out to the couch and get set up for a feeding. He brings the babies out to me one by one and goes back to bed. I feed, burp, and put the babies back to bed.

The baby started crying a little louder, but Mike was still deep in sleep, exhausted from night after night of this routine on top of returning to work. I touched his shoulder, "Mike. It's time. They're ready for a feeding."

He said, "Ok," and was up quickly, his eyes barely open. Instead of heading out of our room, he stumbled to my side of the bed, lifted the covers, and started feeling around on the mattress beside me. Hearing the baby through the monitor, I realized he was looking for the baby in the bed. And we never have the babies in the bed. "Mike, they're in their cribs."

A few nights later when a baby cried, he picked up the alarm clock on his nightstand and started pushing buttons, moving switches, until I realized he was trying to turn off the noise that woke him, trying to stop the crying by hitting "snooze." He was becoming delirious.

But I understood. On one of the first mornings home, after I stayed up all night with the babies (before we came up with a better system), Mike took over caring for them so I could sleep. When he came in to get me for a feeding, he had one baby in his arms. I looked out to the living room, and in my bleary-eyed state I exclaimed, "Who's on the coffee table?!" I thought I saw the other baby left there precariously. But there was no baby there. The other baby was safe in a bassinette. And as far as Mike could tell, I was losing my mind.

Those notorious first few weeks. I understand they can be challenging with just one baby, but this is a time when I feel twins must truly be twice as hard. Think of the schedule. Newborn babies eat every two hours, and that's from the start of one feeding to the start of the next. If you're lucky like I was and can tandem breastfeed (eliminating the time it takes to make bottles AND to feed one at a time), the changing/feeding/burping/soothing to sleep routine takes about an hour. Assuming the babies sleep until the next feeding, that leaves you with one hour out of every two for "yourself."

But that assumption we made is a big one. It's more likely that in the middle of the night you return to bed after completing the routine, and ten minutes later you are awoken when one baby's pacifier has fallen out of his mouth. You go in and replace it, but he won't take it. His face scrunched and his cry pained, you know it's gas again. You pick him up, sit in the rocker with him on your tummy and you pat his lower back steadily, the way you know he likes, enjoying the moment yourself. He's asleep within fifteen minutes.

But as you settle him in the crib, you notice two bright eyes looking up at you from the other one, and she's groaning and fighting her swaddled blanket, trying to Houdini her way out. So you undo her swaddle, reposition her, and wrap her up tightly like a precious burrito, pop in the pacifier which she takes happily, and "shhhh" her to sleep. This takes another ten minutes so you now have (60-10-15-10) twenty-five minutes until diapers and the next feeding and it starts over again. To keep your sanity you tell yourself that this time around they'll sleep better (but they won't). And this goes on...day and night...for weeks...at least.

Here's my advice for surviving those nights:

1. Feed both babies at the same time no matter what. Demand feeding doesn't work with multiples, and their pediatrician will agree. Keep them on the same schedule for feeding, changing, and sleeping (and eventually playing) as much as you can even when that means waking a sleeping baby. She'll wake up ten minutes later anyway, I promise.

2. If the babies are breastfed, divide the nighttime duties as I described above. He changes, she feeds. Even after daddy goes back to work, stick with it. The more sleep mommy gets, the better caregiver your babies have during the day during maternity leave, and that's just as important as anyone's job performance. Mike has gotten really good at changing two babies' diapers fast by the light of a glowing mobile (I think six minutes was his record). If you're bottle feeding, find some other way to divide duties fairly.

3. In addition to dividing the duties, divide the night in half. Back when the babies were waking up a lot between feedings, Mike got up to soothe them if it happened before 2 a.m. If they woke after 2 a.m., I did it. That allowed us both to count on at least a few decent chunks of sleep each night. That is unless both babies were crying at the same time...then we both got up. Good times.

4. SWADDLE. You can keep them swaddled for the first week or so when they sleep all the time, and then just do it for bedtime (and naps if you like). We took a break from swaddling at around the 3 week mark because the babies were fighting them, crying, and not sleeping well. We gave them a shot again a couple weeks later, and the babies slept for five hours, a record at that point. There are flannel swaddle blankets, muslin blankets, Swaddle Me's, Miracle Blankets, and so on. Try as many as you must to find the kind that works. Watching "The Happiest Baby On the Block" will help too. I recommend you do that before the babies arrive or within the first week.

5. Keep a positive attitude as much as you can, and know that it will get better (as annoying as it will be to hear that when you're in the midst of it). We're down to one feeding at night, and they hardly ever wake aside from that.

Even as we were going through those notorious first few weeks, I could feel the romance of it. I was delirius from sleep deprivation, but I was also deliriously happy. I would look at my babies and truly feel filled with twice the love (a statement so sappy I cringed at it before they were born). I was sad when Mike returned to work after the first week, not only because I appreciated his help during the day, but because we bonded even more as genuine partners in this new adventure, and I was going to miss him. Even with multiples, perhaps especially with multiples, it's a remarkably special (and notorius) time.

Go to Eating and sleeping and pooping, oh my!

Our First Date...as Parents

In the early weeks when Mike went back to work, my mom and my mother-in-law Gail came by on alternating afternoons, helping me to slowly adjust to caring for two babies on my own. During that time I would catch up on tasks around the house, occasionally nap or shower, but since I was pretty wiped out from both the c-section and sleep deprivation, we would mostly just sit and chat while admiring Sophie and Michael.  With one baby in the safe hands of a goo-goo-eyed grandmother, I was able to hold and enjoy the other without distraction. That's probably a treasured luxury for all parents of more than one child, but I think it's particularly true for those of multiples.

These days my parents both try to come by at least once a week to visit "the bobble-heads," as my dad dubbed them.  We get together with Mike's parents about as often.  It's been amusing watching our moms and dads transform into grandmas an grandpas, particularly our dads who haven't shown interest in holding babies since the seventies when we were born.  And even then, I doubt they resembled the mush Sophie and Michael transform them into.

My mom called on Thurday to talk about a visit on Friday.  Because she knew she couldn't be here until about the time Mike gets home from work, she suggested she watch the babies while he and I go out to grab some dinner.  Just last week we ventured out for the first time to dinner with babies, eating on the patio of a pizza place with the babies in their stoller.  Next weekend Gail will be staying with the babies while we go out for our 4th anniversary. This seemed like a good time for a trial run.

I fed the babies at 5:00 and called Mike, who was out for a drink with a co-worker, reminding him that we had to make the most of the 2.5 hour window from the end of one feeding to the start of the next.  He pulled in just as I finished burping Sophie (my mom had Michael), and we ducked out the door.

There is very little in the world that makes me happier on a summer evening than eating on a patio (hence the pizza last week), any decent glass of red wine in one hand and an appetizer in the other.  Seriously, I get euphoric in those moments, and it's not just the alcohol.  Mike gets mildly annoyed by how often I'll opt to wait for an outdoor table when we can be seated immediately inside.  Living in Michigan, I feel we need to make the most of the limited warm evenings that come our way, and he indulges me even when starving.  Luckily, even our painfully suburban neighborhood is a short drive from several old-fashioned downtown areas with just the ingredients I crave. 

On this "first date" we went into Northville and ate at Table 5, a restaurant I believe is new since last summer.  A couple took the last outdoor table just as we approached, and knowing how disappointed I was, Mike told the hostess we would take a table inside for drinks and an appetizer, but we hoped to move to the next one available on the patio.  He's a good date. 

Aside from somewhat slow service that had us counting the minutes remaining until the 8:00 feeding, that all went perfectly.  We even had time to stop for ice cream at Rebecca's, an ice cream parlor, on the way back to the car. 

Michigan has become a pretty popular(affordable) place to film movies, and we had heard that Scream 4 was shooting nearby.  Instead of Neve Campbell or Courntey Cox, the only evidence we saw was a Paramount Pictures semi heading out of town as we finished our cones.

In a quiet moment at the restaurant, Mike said, "This is nice."  And it was, Shiraz in one hand and chevre on french bread in the other.  Most meals these days aren't eaten in one sitting.  They're typically interupted by a baby or two whom we mistakenly thought was sound asleep or perfectly content in swings or bouncy seats.  This meal made us feel like ourselves again, spontaneously heading out to a restaurant or a movie or wherever.

On the walk to Rebecca's from the restaurant, a little boy stopped short in front of me, and I almost bumped into him.  I said to Mike, "Oops, I'm running over children.  Good thing ours are safe at home."  Having felt like our old selves for most of the evening, this statement sounded ridiculous to me.  Our children.  Last summer at this time we hoped our plans to conceive would go smoothly.  This summer we don't just have a baby, we have babies.  Both ridiculous and miraculous.

Since my mom has been around on numerous afternoons, changing diapers, using bouncy seats as needed, getting the lowdown on  how best to soothe Michael, how to recognize Sophie's drowsy signs, I wasn't worried while we were out.  But I still called just before we left for home, mainly to make sure she didn't break out the emergency bottles of formula unnecessarily. I didn't want to have to pump when I got home if I could avoid it. 

Mom had Michael cooing in her lap, and Sophie was asleep in her swing when we walked in.  Mom had discovered on her own earlier that night that when they're both inconsolable at once, the swings are the best answer.

"The boobs are back!" I told Michael.  "And so are my breasts."

How did Grandma do it?

My grandparents had boy-girl twins back in 1949, and I often wonder how they did it with the limitations of the time.  No ultrasound images to warn them of the double delivery on the way, no online message boards with words of wisdom and encouragement, and none of this stuff...  

 

Pregnancy

Belly Bands
A multiple pregnancy tends to start showing in a hurry, but I was able to wear regular pants well into my second trimester with a couple of these on hand.  They're like stretchy tubetops that you wear around the waist of your pants with the fly unbottoned and eventually totally unzipped.  When wearing one it appears that a layered tank is peaking out stylishly at your hips.  Post-pregnancy these bands can come in handy again when regular pants don't fit just yet.

 

 

Babies/Twins

Clouds and Stars Zipper Crib Sheets
This sheet set goes all the way around the crib mattress to prevent strangulation, and the very top of the sheet zips off for cleaning.  Is that genius or what?  Until we had babies at home, I couldn't have imagined how frequently spitting-up and diaper failures occur, often in the middle of the night.  I heard MoMs rave about mattress covers that snap on and off on top of sheets and even bought a couple to find them difficult to snap and unsnap around the crib bars (they also smelled strongly of plastic). When I stumbled on this set while searching for sheets, I knew I had to have a couple.  We ordered a set and one extra top sheet to have on hand for both cribs, but we ordered two more top sheets for both cribs within the first week with the babies.  They're just so darn convenient!













Angelcare Monitors
Where to have the babies sleep in the first few weeks was a decision we struggled with.  Worries regarding our cat, our tiny bedroom, and transitioning to cribs later on made us choose to put the babies in their cribs from night one instead of in bassinettes or Arms Reach Co-Sleepers.
I knew, however, that I would be a nervous wreck without being able to see my newborn babies breathing at all times, and we decided to use some gift cards we received on these monitors.  If these monitors aren't beeping, I know my babies are breathing, and I can sleep...that is until I hear them crying through the monitor.













Double Snap -n- Go Stroller
Another genius invention, this stroller allows you to snap two infant carseats onto it.  We've used this for doctor's appointments, walks around the neighborhood, shopping trips, the zoo...really everywhere we've been with the babies so far. It maneuvers remarkably well, and you can't beat the convenience of snapping in the carseats (often with sleeping babies in them) n-going!  My one criticism is that the bottom storage basket is nearly impossible to access when the seats are attached.  If it slid out like a drawer, that would be very handy.













Rock and Play Sleepers
One of the toughest things about taking care of twins, especially when I'm alone, is what to do with one baby when I need to tend to the other.  The height of this rocker is what makes it so useful.  I can transfer one baby from the nursing pillow when I'm sitting on the couch so I can tend to the other without any safety concerns.  This rocker is also currently a successful napping location.  Since it's so small, affordable, and easy to travel with around the house, we bought two and are getting good use out of them.













Bouncy Seats
In the first few weeks one of these bouncers was the only place besides my arms where my son would rest when he was gassy and uncomfortable.  The vibration setting, music/nature sounds, and lights entertain and soothe the babies, and they usually cant resist drifting off to sleep.  These days this is where the babies hang out and nap while I shower or work on projects around the house.  I believe one of my fondest memories from these first few months will be painting decorations for the nursery while bouncing these with my feet, admiring my smiling or dozing babies.  It's another item I recommend getting two of if you have twins. 













Graco Snug Glider Swing
With our tiny house I was thrilled to find swings that you snap Graco infant carseats into.  While they don't offer a cost savings over a regular swing, they are space saving, travel easily, and soothe the babies like nothing else with their motion, vibrations, and music. 













Boppys
Even though I tandem feed for nearly all feedings, there are occasions when feeding just one baby is necessary, and a Boppy makes that very comfortable.  In a pinch I've used our two Boppys for tandem feeding, but they get the most use as infant positioners.  Again, with two, you need to have places where one baby can rest comfortably when the other needs most of your attention.  While supervised, our babies also enjoy napping on their Boppys (and look like they're tubing down a dreamy river).













Soundspa Sound and Lights Machine
The white noise helps the babies sleep (we like "ocean"), and the lights provide a night-light and mobile.  A fellow MoM told me her toddlers have had one of these from day one as well, and these days they rush to turn it on themselves as part of their going to bed routine.  How cute is that?













Dishwasher Baskets
How did people wash pacifiers and small bottle parts before these things? So handy!  We have four of these, but only use one or two regulary for pacifiers and occasional bottles.













Gerber Bottles
I think figuring out what bottles to buy is one of the toughest questions to answer when preparing for a baby (or two or three or four).  After reading many reviews, I knew I wanted BPA free bottles with nipples that wouldn't confuse the babies for breastfeeding, bottles that didn't leak or make the babies gassy, that attached easily to a Medela breastpump, and ones without a thousand parts to clean and assemble.  We were willing to spend a lot of money on that miracle bottle if it existed but ended up going this route when every bottle I researched was missing one or more of those requirements anyway.  These inexpensive bottles don't have the wide and short nipples I was searching for, but they have been perfect for us in every other way (and the babies never seemed confused).  We bought four packages of these and of the 9-ouncers.













Snap T-shirts
Long sleeved ones with cuffs and short sleeved ones are both very useful and easy to change.  They're good to have on hand in the early weeks before babies' cords have healed and onesies aren't recommended.

Nursing

Nursing Tanks
If you're in for a c-section like I was with my breech baby B, you'll likely be in the hospital for a few days recovering. While the maternity gown the hospital provided was very convenient for breastfeeding, I felt much more comfortable after that glorious first shower in a pair of loose PJ pants, a zipper hoodie, and one of these nursing tanks. The top of the tank unhooks like a nursing bra to reveal what is basically a "hidden bra" with holes exposing your breasts for feeding. It's nice to be able to keep your belly covered, especially in those first few weeks, even if modesty regarding your breasts goes out the window. In those hectic first days at home when the line between clothes and pajamas gets very blurry, these tanks fit right into the swing of things.





Sleep Nursing Bras
When your breasts are engorged, it's especially uncomfortable to go braless, even at night. I find these perfectly comfortable to sleep in and incredibly easy to nurse in. I often wear them during the day when just around the house and not expecting visitors (not enough support for me to comfortably wear in pubic).












Nursing Bras
It's important to have a few bras that are supportive enough to wear in public but still allow easy access come feeding time. On one and only one occasion, I mistakenly wore one of my regular bras and discovered why nursing bras were invented. I was buckled into my nursing pillow (see below) and had both babies on it, crying and swatting their arms hungrily. I realized my error but attempted to very awkwardly free the food source from an uncooperative bra. Lesson fully learned.





EZ 2 Nurse Pillow
People ask me how I manage to breastfeed twins, and this pillow is my answer. I simply could not exclusively tandem feed (feed them at the same time) like I do and keep my sanity without it. In the hospital I just used several bed pillows propped around me, but I started using my EZ 2 Nurse once we got home. I wish the cover was easier to take off and put on for cleaning, but this pillow is worth that minor struggle and every penny.













Medela Breast Pump
First, before you go out and spend literally hundreds of dollars on a breastpump, check with your insurance company to see if they cover it. Mine did in the case of multiples (score!), and this is the one my doctor prescribed. I don't love pumping, but I don't have any specific complaints about this pump. If one exists with fewer parts to clean and no tubes or cords to deal with, get that one instead. : )
Tip: Cut small holes in a sports bra to create a hands-free pumping bra (they sell them for $50+). You'll still be tethered to this contraption while you pump, but at least you can eat a snack, surf the web, and pop pacifiers back in protesting mouths as needed.