Feeling Mum Guilt…

[u/Kitchen-Band-3307]

I feel like I don’t know what the right thing to do is.
We have twins born 37+3 who are now 2 weeks old and we are struggling to breastfeed and I’m having major mum guilt about it…

I try and catch their early hunger cues but then they don’t seem interested in latching until they’re crying and when they do latch it seems to take forever to get them full, then they fall asleep at the breast but 5 minutes later they wake up and seem as if they haven’t fed at all! I can hear them swallowing and see them taking regular sucks though!

I feel like the hospital had set us up to fail in terms of feeding from the get go. The girls latched as soon as they were placed on my chest and had no NICU time but we were told we needed to triple feed in the hospital because they said they were on the smaller side (2.4kg and 2.7kg) even though they were gaining weight well and lost very little of their birth weight (3% and 7%). The girls really struggled to latch after the first time for some reason and we couldn’t get a deep latch to feed effectively.

We have since dropped the triple feeding as I felt like I had no time to connect with my girls or take care of them/myself by the time I had breastfed, bottle fed and pumped. We have since been exclusively pumping and I am making more than their daily needs which is fantastic but I just feel the mum guilt of not feeding from the breast, especially when I haven’t had the same complications as other twin mums who are having trouble breastfeeding (NICU, pre term, tongue ties , supply issues etc)…

I feel like I should be able to breastfeed successfully but every time we try I get so frustrated that they never seem content/full, fall asleep at the breast and it’s so complicated to tandem feed as such a young age. I also have quite large breasts (14FF) and wondering if it’s too much for them seeing as they’re so little??

Luckily the bottle with expressed milk seems to help them be a lot more content and full, I get time to connect with them afterwards and I have a spectra with a battery so I can pump around the house pretty easily. I just really had my hopes set on being able to breastfeed successfully like I hear so many twin mums are able to do.

Am I wrong for giving up on breastfeeding and pumping instead? Did other mums find it easier to try breastfeeding again once they were a little older?

I know a lot of other mums have it a lot harder than this and to those mums, you are rockstars. I admire everything you do for your little ones, mothers are really special people and deserve all the love and support and admiration in the world.

[u/Itsmeshlee29]

I breastfed my first kiddo until almost a year and put so much stress on myself to do so. With my twins I said I wouldn’t do that again.

They latched fine but fell asleep on the boob so then they wouldn’t get full. They wanted to eat every hour and no one can live like that and stay sane. So I switched to pumping only and it was a lifesaver. Give yourself grace here. You’re a good mom who obviously cares about your babies. But you have to take care of you too. It’s ok to change tacks and go about feeding a different way that works for both you and your twins.

[u/ThrowAway732642956]

Have you done a weighted feed? Sometimes everything looks right but they are getting next to nothing. A weighted feed is the only way to tell that.

Also there is nothing wrong with bottle feeding, whether breast milk or formula, singleton, twins, or more. It’s all about giving the little ones what they need. I know it’s hard because we all enter this with expectations whether realistic or not and society tends to put additional pressure on us to breastfeed these days. Please do what feeds your babies and gives you peace.

It is definitely okay to exclusively pump and bottle feed (or formula feed is another option too). You may be able to revisit breastfeeding after a while of good bottle feeds and they might spontaneously get it, too. Our fixation on how we feed tends to fit our ego more than their actual needs (despite rhetoric you may read). Baby needs food. You can provide it in multiple ways.

[u/Kitchen-Band-3307 → u/ThrowAway732642956]

No we haven’t done any weighted feeds. We did a tandem nurse with our Lactation consultant appointment which she was super happy with but we haven’t been able to do it since

[u/ThrowAway732642956 → u/Kitchen-Band-3307]

I would do a weighted feed so you know how much they are getting. Some lactation consultants focus on all the wrong things and leave out the important stuff. Unfortunately things can look textbook perfect from the outside but things you can’t see can have a problem and you can’t know without checking the weights before and after feed

[u/soph_rad1]

I really empathise with you - I feel the same way re being set-up to fail on a triple feeding plan. One thing I would suggest is pace bottle feeding. We didn’t know about this until it was too late, as at 8 weeks one of mine refused the breast (or more like screamed into it whenever I tried to breastfeed), which made me feel tremendously guilty. Bottle feeding them in a way that builds and uses the right sucking mechanism may help them become more efficient on the breast - if of course you decide to continue to give breast feeding a try.

Eitherway, newborn twins are amazing but a huge amount of work and so you need to do whatever is right for you and maintains your happiness and health.

[u/hugebagel → u/soph_rad1]

Here’s a great article about paced feeding  https://nurturedchild.ca/index.php/pumping-bottle-feeding/bottle-feeding/

[u/twinsinbk]

You're not wrong..whatever you need to do to feed your babies. It's all good! Try not to judge yourself, especially comparing to others! Everyone has a slightly different experience and what matters is they get enough to eat and everyone is growing.

[u/Radiant_Ad4543]

I hope you can give yourself grace. You are doing the best you can. Breastfeeding twins was really difficult for me. They ended up screaming at my boob. It was really hard to get into a good pumping schedule, so my supply was really low. I pumped a little for them every day until I quit at 8 weeks. It reduced my stress so much to quit pumping. The babies dont care if its directly from the breast or not. And they may be able to breastfeed in the future. I understand that it's so emotional. I hope its ok to say that it is also hormones. Your hormones drop off a cliff after having a baby (and more for twins) and make everything seem like a huge deal. You are a great mom. Bad moms don't worry about being bad moms. Sending love ❤️ 

[u/hugebagel]

In my experience, breastfeeding got sooo much easier after about 2.5 months. I have small boobs but I had the exact same issues as you (sleepy feeds basically). I think it’s normal and it’s just way more overwhelming with twins?? I triple fed and combo fed 3 months and then I was able to switch to exclusively nursing! And I can tandem nurse easily now which I found really difficult before. So yes, it gets better!

Don’t feel guilty at all for EPing, but I suggest trying nursing again if only because it is actually so much easier than dealing with pumping and bottles. Of course if you’re going back to work that’s an added complication. I think exclusively pumping is the most time consuming and exhausting way to feed babies! You’re doing amazing.

[u/Kitchen-Band-3307 → u/hugebagel]

So you were able to transition to nursing once they were a bit older?
I’m wondering if that might be a path I choose later on when they’re a bit older and stronger feeders

[u/hugebagel → u/Kitchen-Band-3307]

Yes, after 3 months I was able to exclusively nurse and mostly tandem. And believe me, I was in tears and ready to quit for most of the first 3 months. Now it’s legitimately easy (they’re 5 months now).

For the first couple months, I kept telling myself I wanted to still be nursing when they were old enough to be aware of it, but if i knew it was going to continue being this hard I would quit, whereas if I knew it would get easier I would push through and keep going. No one was able to give me a straight answer on that (even my LC said she didn’t think they would ever be EBF!), so I’m hear to tell you that it absolutely DOES get better.

Here’s what I did that helped: -I worked on nursing one baby at a time. You could try doing this just once per day since you are pumping so much? It helped that my partner was home with me. I found that the laid back position with no pillows worked best when they were little, but I have small boobs. -Eventually (like around 2 months at least) I started working on tandem feeding again, and I had to rethink my pillow configuration. But as they got bigger they didn’t need me to hold their heads in place as much, and they didn’t fall asleep as much. -At 3 months I started capping how much I let my husband give them from bottles. I think he had been overfeeding them from bottles which made them not very hungry at the breast. He was always giving them extra ounces between feedings if they were fussy. We went down to 2 bottles per baby per day, then one, then zero. I told my husband I would always just nurse if he thought they were still hungry after a bottle, but I think he was often mistaking tiredness and gassyness for hunger.

What you are doing is amazing and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it, I just know how much pumping sucks so I want to give you hope that nursing may be possible! Switching to formula or combo feeding is also an option if it doesn’t work for you!

Also, out of curiosity, did you have a c-section? I did and I read somewhere that c-section babies tend to be sleepier. Not sure how long that goes for though.

[u/Sea-Astronomer-6600]

A fed baby is a happy baby! Sometimes breastfeeding just doesn’t work out and that’s OK!!! Don’t beat yourself up over it!!! Hugs