If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#11
|
|||
|
|||
Hello and breastfeeding question
For the record "well it didn't work too well for me" ;-)
I had to check the post and make sure you were not my husband! We had the same experience only ours were a week older. They tried but never latched on very well and were very lazy not wanting to suck. They more screamed at the breast then ate. I must say the hospital I was at was very supportive of me trying to BF the twins, which I more often hear just the opposite. Even some of the "professionals" tend to discourage mothers of mulitples from breastfeeding. Plus I was not producing enough for one let alone two. I even went on some medication that is for some other purpose but one of the side effects is increased production. Did not help me any at all. After about the 1st two weeks of them getting food, I was more supplementing the formula then the other way around. After the kids came home from the hospital (30 days later) I gave up even trying to bf but continued to pump for a couple of months. By then I was getting about 5 oz at a time, my supply dried up really quick, and I finally gave up even trying. So its not always possible but if you want to, go for it. Find supportive people (such as a lactation consultant which our hospital had free of charge) because that will make all the difference. I know I would not have hung in there for as long as I did without the support. If it doesn't work out, at least you know you tried your best! - Erica "Digital Larry" wrote in message .11... Our boys never really got the hang of it. Born at 32 wks 5 d, they were tube, then bottle fed in NICU for several weeks, no doubt that contributed to the problem. DW did try repeatedly to BF in NICU with very limited success. Also no experience as these are our first. Another problem was that DW's nipples grew to about 5 times their normal size and preemie kids had very hard time latching on as their mouths were pretty small. For the record we did not make that excuse up, the doctor did. I was not much help. I don't read too much about people who have NOT had great success with BF, I think there is a great stigma associated with this "failure" and few women are willing to get up in a public forum like this and say "well it didn't work too well for me". I checked all the responses so far and nobody said anything other than: it was hard but it ultimately worked. My wife felt terrible about it but was able to pump and get a little bit less until 12 weeks where the amount she was getting was only about 5% of their total intake. This stress combined with general exhaustion (we do not have extensive network of able bodied in laws to take care of everything - just us two trying to handle everything). When you put the kid to the breast and he screams bloody murder and thrashes for 15 minutes, then when you give him a bottle he is just ducky... how many times is the average person going to repeat that scene? Today she talked with a good friend who did NOT have twins, their son was NOT premature, and had much the same issues and gave up after 3.5 months. OB/GYN and Ped. were both supportive in the "do what you can do" and "don't feel guilty" sort of way. I am just here to say that you may have an immensely difficult time, esp. if you do not have successful BF experience already and/or the active, ongoing support of other people with experience or perhaps even a professional lactation consultant. This may turn out to be a very unpopular point of view. I wish you the best of luck. |
#12
|
|||
|
|||
Hello and breastfeeding question
Larry ) wrote:
Another problem was that DW's nipples grew to about 5 times their normal size and preemie kids had very hard time latching on as their mouths were pretty small. For the record we did not make that excuse up, the doctor did. One thing that your post made me think of, though it is rather different from what you were actually talking about, is that many women's areolas (the pigmented area around the nipple) are quite large or get much larger during pregnancy. Some books/consultants will actually say that the baby needs to be getting all of the areola in its mouth. Well, sorry, that's not possible if the areola is the size of a pancake! What is actually meant is that the baby must be getting a significant quantity of areola on each side of the nipple, and not be sucking just at the tip of the nipple. My original goal was six weeks, and there were times I didn't think I would make it. By six weeks I felt entirely differently about it and as though we had only just started, but if things had not worked out, I was prepared to switch to formula without a qualm. If you know you've done the best you could under the circumstances you were given, there is no sense in feeling guilty. I think it's undoubtedly true that any amount of breastmilk is worth giving them, especially for premies, and the benefits are the greatest in the beginning. I do think many breastfeeding difficulties (speaking in general here, now, not so much specific twin-related or premie-related stuff) stem from lack of knowledge in the general population and lack of support for families with new babies in general. It isn't even so much that people need to know specific facts, it's that it would be so much more comfortable and easy to breastfeed if it were just generally accepted that that was what one did, and everyone had grown up seeing women do it. Just as it's easier to have confidence in learning to cook if you've grown up watching folks cut up onions and such. --Helen |
#13
|
|||
|
|||
Hello and breastfeeding question
On Fri, 01 Aug 2003 16:26:04 GMT, "C Straka"
wrote: [...] I should also say that this NG has always been amazingly supportive about the different choices that parents make - completely unlike every other parent-related NG I have ever visited. Shhh!! That's supposed to be a secret! ;-) Nick -- Nick Theodorakis |
#14
|
|||
|
|||
Hello and breastfeeding question
All the views on breastfeeding are helpful, successful or not and its
certainly prompting a list of questions to make sure I ask the OB what the feeding regime is at the hospital if they are premature. As for a lactation consultant ......... I've been a nurse for 16 years and never worked in a hospital that's had one. If you are lucky in the UK you get a midwife who's made it her mission to promote breastfeeding! Thanks to everyone for their advice, we actually start twin parentcraft classes on Monday (we were amazed they had those!) so it should be interesting what info they can give )) ..... Wonder if anybody taking the classes has had twins - oh I'm such a cynic! Ellie (26 weeks and counting) |
#15
|
|||
|
|||
Hello and breastfeeding question
Since there were so many good responses I'll just respond to my own post
here. We were certainly warned about the possibility of nipple confusion by NICU staff. They were supportive of BF attempts, but for it to have really worked better DW would have had to have been there nearly constantly, and definitely when they were trying to make the transition from the tube. We live 15 miles from the hospital - I guess we could have rented a motel room or apt. for that time to make it easier to get there. As it was we made every effort to visit twice a day for the entire stretch - though sometimes it was me just delivering some pumped milk. I suppose that we could have insisted that the kids remain on tube feeding until the point they were well enough to go home, but I'm not sure they would have done that since they go out of their way to get them "nippling". Also, the sight of the kids batting/pulling at the feeding tubes and tape on their faces was so disturbing that I wanted to get them off THAT ASAP. We did not influence what happened with that however. I did find the tube more bothersome than all the wires they had attached to them. Lactation consultant at hospital basically breezed in to maternity recovery suite a couple times, gave a few general purpose pointers and gave us some plastic bags that can be placed in the microwave to sterilize bottle stuff. It just was not enough and not at the right time since we were not even WITH the kids when she visited. She did not visit the NICU while we were there... and since parents' presence in NICU is not scheduled I do not see why she WOULD go there. It might have helped to have a very specific focus at the point of transition as I said before. I could tell that DW was getting discouraged after the kids came home - she'd say things like "he doesn't seem to be in the mood to BF", though she tried off and on maybe a dozen times with about zero success. Just about anything I could have said at this point probably would have been the wrong thing, because I was not personally experiencing the problem, nor did I have any valid perspective other than "well I think BF is better". Also one of the boys has pretty bad reflux, it seems a shame to take that valuable liquid and watch it go flying all over the bib and blankets. There again, every little bit helps though right? No simple answers. I'm thinking in retrospect, what could/would we have done differently? I really don't know. One poster had some other suggestions which I did not fully understand, but those might be worth pursuing. Thanks for the many thoughtful responses. |
#16
|
|||
|
|||
Hello and breastfeeding question
My twins didn't really nurse effectively for the first 4 to 6 months.
They were getting a combination of expressed breast milk and formula. But eventually they got better at nursing and more interested in it, and they ended up nursing until about 30 months. I don't know if my wife would have stuck with the pumping if we hadn't had full-time help. (Although "full-time" is only 40 hours/week, which is still a pretty small fraction of the hours in the week!) David desJardins |
|
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|