expecting twins--I dont want to nurse-- am I normal?

↑ DefyGravity

Sun, Sep 18 2011, 11:19 am

PinkFridge wrote:

sarahd wrote:

ewa-jo, that's okay by day. At night, you have to get up out of bed, stumble to the kitchen, try to focus and locate the bottle, formula can and water tap. Turn on the light so you can see what you're doing, which wakes you up completely. Then sit up, hold the bottle so that the nipple is full of milk and not air, hold the baby, and feed.

Contrast this to haul baby out of crib (if he's not sleeping with you already), snap open bra and nurse. Fall back asleep while nursing. Baby sleeps too.

I nursed three kids and bottle fed one and I hated the tircha of bottle feeding.

I'm with you all the way. But we do have to appreciate that it's a bit more complicated with twins.

Yes, and as a mother of 10 month twins, it was doubly hard to deal with bottle feeding twins. Whenever my husband would bottle feed one at night, I'd have to listen to crying for several minutes until the bottle was made and heated. It took several minutes even using prepared bottles. It was so much faster to put them to breast. It also eliminated a lot of waste. After you heat up a bottle, you can't use it again. Oftentimes a baby will take a couple sips, and then the rest of the bottle goes down the drain.

We never sterilized bottles, and it still took time.

nylon

Sun, Sep 18 2011, 11:32 am

sequoia wrote:

Uhh, so this may be the Russian in me but HOW CAN YOU GIVE A BABY RAW WATER? I don't care how good the water is in your area. Babies can only have boiled water!

Actually, in many areas the advice is to use bottled distilled water because of the fluoride in tap water.

I am not convinced that boiling does anything unless we're talking the European method of making up formula using boiling water to kill Enterobacter in milk powder, which the FDA does not recommend. (Yes.... E. sakazakii in formula powder killed 2 babies. Not a joke.) Now that's a pain because you either need to make the bottle up on demand and cool it down, or make up 6 in a row and then warm them up. I had a lot of sleepless nights when formula feeding because each one took so long using those precautions.

Don't dismiss the safety guidelines with "my baby was fine." With almost all safety precautions, most babies will be fine. Back when babies rode in their mother's lap in the car, most babies survived car trips, but we still use car seats now. I used a steam sterilizer, so the bottles were always all ready to go.

(that said, if I had a preemie or other fragile baby, I simply would not use powdered formula and would shell out for RTF initially. It's sterile.)

↑ life'sgreat ↓

Sun, Sep 18 2011, 11:37 am

ewa-jo wrote:

I didn't nurse either of my 3 little ones (I pumped and bottle fed) but I wanted to add something really quick.

Formula feeding is*NOT* fussy or time-consuming. I guess it can be, but it's not.

Sterilizing bottles is un-necessary and dumb. Wash them in hot water and dish-soap for 2 seconds... done. I wash bottles once a day. Bottles aren't expensive, so you buy a few to have one whenever you need it.

Heating bottles is an extra step.. forget what the formula instructions say about using cooled-off boiled water. I've always used tapwater at room temperature. If your city's tapwater is yucky, then keep a bottle of bottled water on the counter (not in the fridge!) to mix formula with.

Baby is crying... I walk into the kitchen, grab a bottle, turn on the tap and fill with water, grab the formula can and scoop it, close the bottle and give it a quick shake as I walk into the living room. That's about a minute and a half.

I have no idea how other people make bottle-feeding so complicated.

It changes completely with two babies.

Mirabelle ↓

Sun, Sep 18 2011, 11:57 am

I bottle fed my twins and I didn't see how it is more time consuming. When you have twins and are bottle feeding you come up with a "system" to feed them both at once. It took us a few weeks to figure it out, but once we got it it was smooth sailing. Then again, I also bottle fed by older one, so I was already an "expert" on bottle feeding and how to set up a system.

B"H they are now almost 2 years old and doing beautifully! I don't think if you visited their preschool class that you would be able to pick out that my twins were a) five weeks early and b) they were bottle fed.

↑ Mirabelle

Sun, Sep 18 2011, 12:00 pm

life'sgreat wrote:

ewa-jo wrote:

It changes completely with two babies.

We didnt steralize the bottles, we let the dishwasher do it (after being rinsed first).
We used bottled water because we had one of those big water cooler thingies.

Different strokes for different folks guys!
Having newborn twins is a huge challenge, but we all find ways to make it work!

momx6

Sun, Sep 18 2011, 12:02 pm

I nursed my twins (now almost 4 years old). I wasnt sure what would happen since I did have a 4 yo and 2 yo already. I got lots of formula just in case. I ended up nursing them completely until they were about 15 months when I got preg with the next baby. I used a special pillow and once I figured out the whole tandem nursing thing it worked great.
I personally wanted to nurse bec. its good for them and also bec. I hate hate hate bottles, formula and washing bottles a million times a day.
By the way, I pumped when I went back to work and I would get about 18 oz. of milk from 1 pumping session.
Good luck with your decision, why dont you try to play it by ear. See what happens. If you nursed your older kids then it wont be so hard for you with the twins.
Beshaa Tovah!

Amy3

Sun, Sep 18 2011, 1:18 pm

Just wanted to add that we got a great gift of a microwave sterilizer.
It was made by Avent and you put the bottles in and a specific amount of hot water, stick it in the microwave, and put it on for 5 minutes. I definitly used it for a good few months. Could be even the first year.
I also got them used to drinking room tempature water. Not from the tap but bottled or boiled and cooled water. I recommend that way HIGHLY.. at 3 am you do not want to be warming up bottles...and this way they could always eat on the go, never had to wait for anything to heat up or cool down....

6yeladim

Sun, Sep 18 2011, 1:45 pm

I don't have experience but there is a wonderful book, Mothering Multiples, by Karen Gromada. She has excellent suggestions for moms of twins who want to breastfeed, taking into account that many times one or both is small, hospitalized, etc. I gave it as a gift to a cousin, who said it answered all of her questions.

Wishing you an easy pregnancy and birth!

rowo

Sun, Sep 18 2011, 9:20 pm

I don't have twins so I can't comment on that aspect.
but I think any pregnancy can make a woman a little crazy, I know I get stressed about the silliest things sometimes. not that breastfeeding/bottle feeding is a silly thing at all.
but at 15 weeks, I would suggest you don't worry about it now.
I know that during pregnancy I get very overwhelmed very easily and start to get a bit panicky... breastfeeding twins definitely sounds like something that could seem very overwhelming!!
but there is nothing you need to do now or even make any final decisions on. just try and relax and see how things go

↑ life'sgreat

Sun, Sep 18 2011, 9:28 pm

Mirabelle wrote:

I bottle and breastfeed and I find the prep for breastfeeding a lot easier.

I'm really not pushing the OP to breastfeed, but I do think she should take it into consideration. Once you give up nursing, that's that, so it's something she needs to think about ahead of time. She can't just switch back to breastfeeding.

SivanMom

Sun, Sep 25 2011, 1:35 pm

You are normal, and do what you need to do. I nursed my eldest for 7 months, my second exclusively for 14 months, and my twins for 8 weeks, plus two weeks of pumping. So I'm all over the map with the nursing and bottle feeding, and in each case I did what was right for me and my family at the time. That's what you have to do, and then you and your babies will be happy.