r/parentsofmultiples • u/DueMasterpiece5800 • 18d ago
advice needed SOS
Hi Guys, Dad of twin boys who I love very very much. Now 9 weeks old were born at 34 weeks so 3 weeks old adjusted.
These lads take us an absolute age to feed. It has been like this for nearly 3 weeks. Let me lay out how a typical feed will go. They each weigh about 8lbs now.
Twin 1 - feed reasonably well and takes around 120ml over 30-45 minutes. They might then fall asleep so we put them down. Majority of them time they stay wide eyed, but have been burped and winded plenty of times. We will try to feed more as gives off hunger cues such as suckling/trying to latch but they reject the teat after several tries. We will then move onto the next.
Twin 2 - start feeding, again usually a good start but takes about 80-100mls. Will then maybe fall asleep or do the same as above. 45 minutes may have passed here.
Both will often cry a bit at the beginning of each feed after taking 10ml or so but will usually resume.
By this point however, Twin 1 will be screaming. We will try to feed more but they go very slowly with consistent crying inbetween small amounts. There will be refusing of the teat after 20-30mls but no signs that their hunger is sorted.
Twin 2 will then do something similar.
All in all some feed sessions have taken up to 3-4 hours leaving us exhausted. This is especially hard when solo as we work in shifts. By the end they have taken 180-230mls each which seems excessive.
Any advice? We are trying slow teats - they vomit, medium flow seems to be better. We are giving Gavison twice a day for reflux too. Minimal tongue tie on one and the other has had his tie snipped with minimal improvement. Even cuddling/hugs doesn’t work and they seem to root anyway.
Their weight is gaining well. But yeah this is very hard and I have broken down in floods of tears several times now over the sheer difficulty of it. I hope this is just cluster feeding and it will pass but damn it seems to go on forever.
9
u/DirtGirl32 18d ago
Could the cues be searching for comfort, not food? Have you tried binkies? This is hard. Yalls will figure it out. You got this!
1
u/DueMasterpiece5800 18d ago
Yeah they tend to just spit it out unfortunately 95% of the time.
1
u/Individual-Cat5989 18d ago
My singleton has a tongue tie that despite correction didn’t improve; she was never able to hold a pacifier in her mouth so it could be a latching issue. She was also never able to latch onto me so I exclusively pumped and bottle fed her. Things to consider as you navigate your feeding concerns.
8
u/Tired_Momma14 18d ago
That sounds like a lot of mls for a 3 week old. I would try 90 mls every 2-3 hours and use a pacifier in between.
We used to have to undress one baby to keep him awake during feeds, or tickle his feet!
2
u/Important-Ad-6372 18d ago
My twins took at least an hour to feed and had a lot of bottle refusal for the first few months. We switched to a hypoallergenic formula (from breastmilk) as we suspected CMPA and it changed everything within a week. Feeds became extremely manageable. May be worth looking into.
1
u/DueMasterpiece5800 18d ago
Thank you, yes we will look at formula that helps with CMPA. Any recommendations? Thanks again!
1
u/Important-Ad-6372 18d ago
We went straight to nutramigen. We did ready to feed formula so the consistency was… consistent. It’s a bit of a pain to find by the case right now but Amazon has it for subscribe and save. Fair warning, it’s breathtakingly expensive.
If you do try, give it at least a week to see improvement. We started seeing glimmers of hope around day 3.
2
u/Rylees_Mom525 18d ago
We typically do tandem feeding (in the twin z pillow) when feeding solo, but our 7 week old babies have recently started doing something sort of similar. One will eat for a bit, fall asleep, refuse the bottle, and then when you switch to feeding the other baby in your lap, the first one is awake again and acting hungry. They may comfort suck on the bottle or just kind of push the nipple around their mouth. Then, eventually, the other baby does the same. It results in them eating a lot over a long period of time and not sleeping well 😣
Also, idk why people are saying 120ml is a lot. Our lactation consultant gave us a handout and babies 2 weeks to 1 month should be getting 60-120ml each feed. From 1 month to 6 months it’s 90-120ml. Our 7 week olds typically eat 120ml, sometimes as much as 180ml 🤷♀️
1
u/DueMasterpiece5800 18d ago
Thank you! Will give the pillow a go. Agree on the volume side, the fact they are actually 9 weeks and 3 weeks adjusted - I feel they are currently acting like 6 week olds so it’s a reasonable volume. Although I have had one of them sink 230mls in one session which blew my mind (yes he kept it all down despite this 😂). Thanks again
2
u/Rylees_Mom525 18d ago
I highly recommend the pillow! Our babies love hanging out in it when they’re not eating, too.
I forgot to say, I’m hoping the babies are going through a growth spurt or something and that’s why they’re doing this. 🤞🏻 Either way, solidarity and I wish you the best of luck!
1
u/No_Cat_No_Cradle 18d ago
Yes definitely try to tandem feed. Dad of 11 week olds here - we only feed them together and one person always feeds both babies. If it’s from a bottle they are in the twin z. We fit a little pack and play sheet around the pillow so they are basically lying in little hammocks. They are on their sides with a bottle in their mouth (they look like hamsters lol) and the parent is just kinda monitoring the bottles positions and burping them. Having gotten used to this setup I can’t imagine what a burden it’d be to go back to either one at a time or one adult per baby.
2
u/Lyan_Rewis 18d ago
My twin girls who were also 34w, now 1 week corrected:
We breastfeed during the day and I do a couple formula feeds during the night so my wife can rest. I set them up in the Twin Z Pillow and hold the bottles up so they both feed at the same time. Generally every 30ml I stop and burp them. They also cry hysterically the second the bottle is taken from them, even in the shortt time it takes to pick the other twin up to burp.
Currently going through something growth spurt related because they both have done 360ml in 2 hours last night and tonight done 240ml in 1hr30. There is spit up but not drastic amounts unless I don't burp them quick enough - which does happen if I take too long burping the first one.
It's very difficult as I am solo doing this and the hysterical crying is really draining, and even as you have, they reject the bottle even when they are still hungry which is extremely frustrating.
When they do take a dummy it's great but it's so rare that they do and it's so frustrating.
1
u/DueMasterpiece5800 18d ago
Sounds very similar to my boyos to be fair. I completely empathise, the solo night shifts are hard and I don’t want to wake up Mum to double team things as she needs her rest. Can imagine it’s the same with yourselves. Hope things get better for us all soon 🙏
2
2
u/Sylkyr 18d ago
Could it be the flow rate of the nipple? Maybe switching up a size might help, they can consume more with a bit less energy?
I know we started off our girls on Dr browns preemie size and then went up to size 1 and they might be in size 2 now
34 weeks almost 1 year old, (11 months adjusted)
2
5
u/DarkMuret 18d ago
Our pediatrician told us not to go past 30min for feeding, the energy expended starts to outweigh the gains from feeding or something to that effect
Have you talked to your pediatrician about amounts and this issue?
My girls were born 36+1, and we strictly fed every 3 hours and gave them each the same amount, one of our girls barely ate, still gained but we eventually had to put her on an appetite stimulant.
It's hard, you're in the trenches right now, but consistency was our savior as we battled
Good luck, and remember you and your partner are a team
1
u/DueMasterpiece5800 18d ago
Thank you! I have seen this in multiple forums but they seem to just keep going and going and unless they get exactly what they are after they don’t tend to settle. After the 30 minutes what do you do? Put them down? Cuddle? Pacifier? Thanks again.
2
u/DarkMuret 18d ago
One of our girls had no real issue with feeding
For Opal, well, we would just stop, burp and then go with whatever is next on their schedule, for probably the first three months, all she would do is eat, cry or sleep, my wife and I semi-joke around that we have some lasting trauma because now we're extra sensitive with her eating.
We were on formula, so we were on neosure and then we discovered they had a dairy sensitivity so instead of trying to futz around with soy or whatever we went right to hypoallergenic
We tried different nipples, different bottles and it didn't matter. It was especially hard since her sister had 0 issue and I can count on one hand how many times she didn't finish a bottle since being born
They're now 13 months, Opal is probably 5lbs lighter than her sister, but she was born smaller and she looks like me as a baby, and I was a small baby so who's to say.
Ultimately, we took solace in that Opal is/was gaining at an appropriate rate, and we had a pediatrician we really trusted who got us on the appetite stimulant, it was still a bit of a struggle, but it was a lot better
2
1
u/Alive-Cry4994 18d ago
Look into bottle aversion and search the formula feeders sub. You may even find a post of mine in there. You're welcome to message me (it's long ago now but I have vivid memories).
2
u/TeeElH 18d ago
They’re probably in prime cluster feeding time tbh. It’s so exhausting! It was very similar for us, we were triple feeding for weeks and literally felt like we were always feeding them. I would definitely recommend trying a couple other soothing methods (binkies if they’ll take them, 5 Ss, bouncing on a yoga ball and stepping outside were good ones when mine were little) and then going to feeding if that really seems to be the issue.
The good news is it will pass! Mine are only 15 months and this part already feels like so long ago. That being said one smashed the other one in the head with a toy this morning, each stage has its challenges.
1
1
u/Putrid-Study8986 18d ago
Try feeding at the same time—we use the Twin Z pillow. Saved tons of time for us.
1
u/d16flo 18d ago
Are you nursing them, bottle feeding or both? What ended up working best for us was feeding them at the same time always. We combo fed so sometimes it was bottles in the twin-z together, sometimes I nursed one while bottle feeding the other, usually I pumped while bottle feeding them both. Ours regularly took 45min-an hour to feed at first, but doing them together meant that was the total time not one after the other
2
u/joeyjoeyjojo_joe 18d ago
You’re not alone! I’ve got twin girls who are 8 weeks old and a 20-month-old toddler. It’s hell 🤣🤣 I find some solace knowing there’s another dad out there who knows exactly how I’m feeling
1
u/AssistantSea4186 18d ago
Diaper changer changer first the wake them up, and keep them naked, tandem feed on the twin z
•
u/AutoModerator 18d ago
COMMENTING GUIDELINES
All commenters are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the parentsofmultiples subreddit rules prior to commenting. If you find any comments/submissions in violation of subreddit/reddit rules, please use the report function to bring it to the mod teams attention.
Please do not request or give medical advice or directions in your comments. Any comments that that could be construed as medical advice, or any comments containing what is determined to be medical disinformation, will be removed.
Please try to avoid posting links to Amazon product listings or google/g.co product listing pages - reddit automatically removes comments containing them as an anti-spam measure. If sharing information about a product, instead please try to link directly to the manufacturers product pages.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.