Breastfeeding twins is not always fun

Despite moments like these which make it look so easy, breastfeeding twins is not always the idyllic bonding experience that nursing is often made out to be. When I found myself suffering from a plugged milk duct a few weeks back, I was not surprised to find out that one risk factor for the problem is simply nursing twins. For mothers who wish to breastfeed twins there are two options: tandem nursing (as shown in the picture) or nursing one at a time. Advantages to tandem nursing: significantly less of a time commitment, an important consideration since it can take 12 to 15 hours a day to nurse two infants individually. Disadvantages to tandem nursing: all three people involved are considerably less comfortable than they would be nursing individually. Three is, indeed, a crowd. Since there are advantages and disadvantages to each, I try to combine the two strategies. Lately, at night, I will nurse individually since I hesitate to wake a baby who might sleep another couple of hours. Sometimes, like the night before last, the result is as good as to be expected, other times, like last night, the whole thing just falls apart.

Since the most loyal reader of this blog has complained that far too much web space on it has been dedicated to the subject of the babies' sleep and the mother's lack of it, I will attempt to limit all discussion of sleep to 10% of this blog. That being said, I'll start out today by saying that last night was not an easy night. At some time yesterday Liam had latched on incorrectly to the left boob, leaving it tender and sore. This didn't turn out to be a problem until Liam woke up hungry at 1:30 a.m. I don't think anyone would disagree that excruciating pain does not make for pleasant breastfeeding. My plan of feeding lying down on the futon in order to sleep while the baby is eating was complicated by the cycle of wincing, grimacing, and re-latching that went on until Owen woke up some time later. After unsuccessfully putting Liam back down in his crib, I ended up once again rocking him with my foot while feeding Owen. Later, while I was bottlefeeding both babies in their rockers with milk that I had frozen last week because the boobs were completely empty and the babies were still starving, I wanted to throw in the burpcloth altogether. Fortunately, by morning the boob was feeling better, everything was under control again, and breastfeeding for 6 months at least no longer seemed impossible. I guess we'll keep at it at least for one more day.

Finally, in order to end with something altogether unrelated to the subject of sleep, yesterday I was hit for the first time with explosive poop. Liam fired out at me during a diaper change and managed to get the carpet, my pants and my sock before all was said and done. I forgave him.