How to breastfeed twins

This week it's Twins & Multiples week.  Now getting to grips with breastfeeding one baby can be tough. But what about when you have to feed two? Harriet from Is There a Plan B blog has written a guest post for us on how she fed her twins - with some really useful tips. 

Take heart, mums of multiples, it is possible!

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How to breastfeed twins - by Harriet

You will need: A sofa.  A twin feeding cushion.  Two babies.

Pick up babies.  With practice this can be both at the same time.  Place one baby at one end of the sofa and the other at the other end.  Strap on twins feeding cushion (google it to find one).  Lower self heavily to sofa, avoiding babies and trying to ignore the fact that you look like a hippo in a tutu (think Disney's Fantasia). 

Reach left hand out to left baby and roll baby up arm onto cushion.  Remove clothing from both breasts. Latch left baby on and feed.  Repeat on right.  Drink pint of water.  Eat cereal bar.  Repeat as necessary.

How to breastfeed twins in tandem and in public while retaining your dignity.

Can't be done. Sorry.  One at a time when you're out and about I'm afraid.  And take extra breast pads, because you'll leak.  Sorry, but there it is.

How to embarrass the unembarrassable.

Double breast pump.  Say no more.

How to save money, avoid washing up and eat lots (and lots) of guilt-free cake, while convincing everyone else you're a fantastically good person.

Breastfeed twins.  Because it can, honestly, be done.  It isn't impossible, it isn't exhausting (or no more so than having new born twins is anyway) and it is one of the things that I am most proud of having done, not least because the midwives (no really) told me I couldn't.  I had two advantages - I'd breastfed my first, so I knew I was physically capable of feeding a baby, and I had (and still have) a husband who was prepared to get up in the night to help me do it. 

I'm not saying either is essential, but they both made a real difference, as did the community midwife who was herself a mum of twins and who sat with me and gave me the confidence that I wasn't going to drop them, that I could latch them both on, and that once they were latched on I could let go, and have both hands free for the remote, the phone or the inevitable cereal bar (I'm sort of joking about the cake, but when you are on medical advice to eat an extra 1000 calories a day, you'll eat anything. I never thought I could get bored of eating, but actually that was one of the few downsides of the whole thing).

If asked, which I have been, how I did it, the answer is simple:  I had a twin feeding cushion (stupidly expensive for what is essentially a bit of foam, but totally essential) and I really wanted to do it. Now I realise that there are lots of people who either don't want to, or can't for all sorts of valid reasons, breastfeed one baby, let alone twins, and that is obviously their choice, and I have no axe to grind with them. But if you do have twins and you do want to feed them yourself, please, please, please, don't let the fact that they are twins stop you. There are lots of other factors that might, but that honestly isn't one of them.  I fed my girls exclusively for six months and then combined it with solids for a further six weeks or so, and then stopped because I wanted to go to a wedding and they weren't invited.

I have no idea what, if any, difference it has made to them, and clearly I'd still be the harassed mother I am today, with them at 2 1/2, their big sister at 4, and their new baby brother now five weeks old (it'll come as no surprise that I'm feeding him too) whether I had fed them myself or not, but I am, nonetheless, so incredibly glad and proud that I did.

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Great job Harriet! Thanks for sharing that super positive experience and those useful tips. Let us know if you've managed to breastfeed twins or multiples. We'd love to hear how you did it. And if you're in the market for nursing bras, head on over to http://www.emma-jane.com/ to see our range.