Breastfeeding 103 - at your request

I had a request to write more about the magical world of breast-feeding twins. Well, ever one to try and please a reader, here goes:

Breastfeeding 103: What “they” didn’t tell you.

Point One: Pain is not normal. Pain is not just a part of it. Pain doesn’t not mean you need to toughen up and get used to it. Pain means that there is a problem and you need to see some body about it. It could be an infection, it could be a bad latch, it could be a poorly fitting bra - it could be anything. Please, go to http://www.lalecheleague.org/ and find out. A lot of people won’t tell you their painful nipple/aching boob/mastitis/bad latch stories because they don’t want to scare you or put you off nursing. However, many women experience some form of pain or discomfort when first nursing because we rarely have the opportunity to see someone nursing, to discuss nursing with an experienced mother or feel that we can “stare” at a baby nursing without seeming rude. How then are we supposed to know what to do? I don’t mind if someone wants to see how my babies latch on, how they nurse or whatever, but I am rather open about these things. It seems to me that the mothers who nurse, in general, like to talk about it and the mothers for whom it has not gone well are reluctant to talk. It’s too bad – those who need information are afraid to ask and those who have the knowledge have very few people to teach. I hope I don’t make someone who chose not to nurse her baby uncomfortable and I also hope that I don’t push breastfeeding discussions on those who are not comfortable talking about it. If I do, just tell me to put a sock in it, will ya?

Point Two: Bottle-feeding is not the only way a Daddy can be involved with the baby! I know a stay at home father who was disappointed that his wife stopped nursing their baby at eleven months. He felt the baby should have been breastfed until at least 18 months, but she found the pumping, storing and bottle-feeding to be too much with her full time job. Very understandable, but shouldn’t the father, by all popular myths, be glad that he could “take part in the feedings better” now that there are no boobs involved? This father is the one who takes the child to playgroups, music classes, to the park, the playground, the museum, out to lunch, to baby kick-boxing, tae kwon do classes, to the Let’s Read Proust at the library, etc. How could he feel less involved if the baby nursed when mama got home? So if you are thinking to bottle feed just so Daddy can be more involved, don’t do it. If you want to bottle feed so Daddy has to be more involved, well, that’s your call, of course.

Point Three: All kinds of weird things happen to your breasts when you are pregnant, and a lot of it is so you are ready to breastfeed. For example, having pointed out that pain is not normal, there are some pains that can not be avoided, but that do get less acute with time. Such as my old pal, vaso-constriction. That’s what it is called when your nipples suddenly blanch and you feel a stingy, ouchy, burning sensation. It will happen less and less as you nurse more and more, don’t worry. The easiest and quickest way to soothe the pain is to press a hot washcloth against the skin. Heat took the stinging away for me almost immediately, so when the babies latched on with their warm little mouths, it did the same thing. A few other women I have mentioned this to agreed it went away by month two, so don’t fret!

Point Four: Babies wean when they are ready, all by themselves, sometime after they are a year old. So if your seven-month old baby, after an ear infection, or a bout of the flu, or mouth ulcers or something, suddenly stops nursing for a few days, it could be a nursing strike. Just pump milk to keep up your supply, or keep on nursing the other twin, and give the striking baby the breast-milk from a cup or a spoon, or, my trick – with an old medicine dropper, that the Tylenol was washed out from. If you are nursing twins, the suckling baby will make the striking baby jealous, and pretty soon they will both be at it hammer and tongs again. If you have just one baby, pump for a few days and offer the breast when the baby is sleepy, or at nap time, or just after a feeding of apple smush, or whenever the baby usually nursed happily. Another way to encourage breast feeding is to run a warm bath, get in it with the baby and snuggle skin to skin. Quite often the warmth and the water and mama all together are too much for even the most adamant striker to resist. Of course when the baby is 22 months old and now YOU want to wean, you are going to wish you hadn’t helped the striker cross the picket line, so to speak, but we are operating on the assumption you want to nurse until the baby is physically and emotionally ready, and that rarely happens at seven months.

Point Five: When your twins are 18 months old, they are still going to want to nurse nursety nurse as much as they did when they were 18 days old. Except now, as willful, strong minded toddlers, they have the ability to tell you they want to nurse and to make you fell terrible if you say no, for whatever reason. So be prepared to have The Attack of the Toddlers happen at playgroups, in libraries, in restaurants, or wherever you might find yourself sitting down. And if there is another baby nursing in the room, your own nursling will see, think – That looks like a great idea- and run to pounce on mama. You are forewarned.