A Post About My Experience Breastfeeding

Sue from A Good Egg asked me whether or not I am exclusively breastfeeding my twins. The short answer is yes. For those of you who are interested in the details and my experience with BF, read on...

I decided to write this post in response to Sue's question to me and also, I was reading through Jill's experience here and thought that it was a great idea to share all the gory details in the event that another new Mom trying to BF would benefit from my experience. I've split this topic into two posts - the first one being how I got to this point from the time the kids were born to now. The second post (to come) is about what I've observed along the way and my own personal experience.

Onto how I got to where I am today...

BF is not easy, at least it hasn't been easy for me. I have gotten where I have gotten out of sheer determination, bullheaded stubbornness, persistence, dedication and a very hot and heavy relationship with my Madela Pump 'n Style. I think that my breasts have a mind of their own and the key to breastfeeding is to think like a breast. I used to think that you could just stick the baby on your breast and everyone would magically know what to do. Wow was I wrong. I knew nothing about latching on, milk flow, let downs, milk ejection reflexes, oxytocin, blocked ducts...there turns out to be a lot to learn!

Since my babes were born 6 weeks early, they were in the NICU and Level II nursery for almost 3 weeks after they were born. My milk supply was slow to come in because I lost about 3L of blood at the delivery and I needed to physically recover first. I had next to no colostrum and my milk came in after about 10 days. I was able to start my supply by using a hospital grade breast pump and I was pumping about 8 times per day to simulate when and how many times the kids would have been BF. It was very discouraging at first as there would be so little in the bottle after each pumping session and sometimes, nothing at all so I started tracking the amount pumped per day on the recommendation of a lactation consultant. Slowly, ever so slowly, I saw the daily total rise which was encouraging and what I needed to see to continue. The chart was very simple - time pumped and how much I got with a column for every day of the week with a total at the bottom.

In the hospital, the girl both had feeding tubes down their noses through which they were fed formula and any few drops of colostrum that I was able to produce. The hospital was really good about not pushing formula but after three days of pumping 8 time a day with next to no colostrum coming out, we decided that we would give the girls formula. They had lost about 10% of their birth weight at that point which is normal but seeing as they were being fed next to nothing, I didn't see that sliding trend reversing anytime soon. I think the most colostrum I ever got was one half mL. We had to collect it using a syringe and I cringed as I had to split it in half so each of my girls only got 1/4 of a mL. Their stomachs at that point were only the size of marbles but still, 1/4 mL doesn't fill a marble.

For those of you who are struggling, I hope that this gives you hope - we started off on 100% formula with the girls being tube/bottle fed and over the course of the next 2 months, were able to progress to the point where they girls were transitioned completely off of formula and put onto 100% breast milk. Please don't get me wrong - I am not anti-formula. It saved my girls' lives as I did not have any milk to give them. Heck, *I* was formula fed as the wisdom at the time I was an infant said formula was better than breast milk. It is just my personal preference to feed my girls EBM (expressed breast milk).

When the feeding tubes were removed, the girls started BFing and bottle feeding all at the same time. When I was at the hospital for a feed, I would let them latch on and nurse as best they could and then I would give them a top up of EBM in a bottle. They would get so tired so easily being preemies and by topping them up with a bottle after each feed, they were getting more milk and therefore more calories for less effort. I am still continuing this practice even today. I BF them first and then offer them a top up bottle at every feed. This has more to do with my supply now but I am still topping them up.

We discovered soon after bringing them home that Caitlyn was tongue tied and needed to have her frenulum clipped. It was a simple in office procedure at the doctor's and apparently it is quite painless for them. What has to happen is that they had to keep Caitlyn's mouth open while them clamped the part of the frenulum they wanted to clip so that all of the blood was squeezed out. They had to keep the clamp on for a minute or two (which sound like an eternity to me as I chose to wait in the reception area while DH stayed with her and she screamed through the whole thing). The actual snip it self - a split second and then it was all over. No blood, no bleeding after and she wanted to nurse right away. There was no freezing or anesthetic needed and she was in an out the same day.

What breastfeeding looks like for me now on a typical day:

• 6:30am wake up. Offer bottles of 30mL first with Tri-Vi-Sol vitamins added. Then nurse both individually for about 10-15 minutes each.
  
• 10:00am wake up from nap and nurse both again for about the same amount of time offering top up bottles of 30mL again after nursing each one
  
• 12:30pm nurse both and offer top up bottles of 50mL after. Both girls then go down for a nap which is their major nap of the day which lasts about 2 hours.
• 3:00pm wake from nap and nurse again for about 10 minutes each. Offer top up bottles of 30mL after nursing
• 5:30pm final bottle of 110mL and no nursing. Girls go down to bed at around 6pm for the night. I pump after they go down for about 20 minutes instead of nursing them. I usually get about 50mL from each breast.
  
• 9:30pm pump for 20 minutes and get anywhere from 75mL to 100mL from each breast
• 2:30am pump for 20 minutes and get about 150mL from each breast. Girls are usually awake and are fed and changed. Bottles of 110mL are given rather than nursing so that feed can be started and completed in 30 minutes and DH can help me.
  

Next post - things I have learned along the way and observations I've had about BF that I didn't read about in any books. Also, I wanted to open up the floor to answer any questions anyone else had about BF twins or just BF in general.