Schedules

We have been parents for 3 months, and I already forget what it is like to have my own schedule.  We eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom on their time!  Social life, gone!  I must apologize to all our friends with whom we have lost touch. It is extremely difficult to get out with newborn twins, but feel free to visit us!  Just make sure it is within the short 2 hour time slots between feedings. 

From birth, the twins were on a three hour, start to start, feeding schedule.  That means the moment you start feeding, the next feeding should begin in three hours.  In the hospital Amy would feed one baby at a time.  After giving birth, mothers produce colostrum before the milk comes in.  It could take over a week before enough milk is produced to feed one baby, let alone two. Therefore, we had to supplement with formula. To help bring in the milk, Amy would need to pump after every feeding.   We were thankful that the hospital provided us with formula during our four night stay after the birth.  Nursing twins one at a time, supplementing, pumping, cleaning pump parts, changing diapers, swaddling them, and rocking each baby to sleep took some time!  If we were lucky, we finished the process in an hour and a half.  That gave us an hour and a half break before the process began again.  We tried our best to get sleep when we could!   

If you are an expecting father of twins, you should plan on being involved in each part of the feeding process, especially if the mom had a c-section.  Your wife will not be able to get out of bed, so you will be handing her each baby, changing them, swaddling them, rocking them, soothing them, setting up the breast pump, washing the pump parts, drying the pump parts, and handling any other unexpected surprises that arise.  If you have an extended hospital stay like we did, take advantage of the nurses and the nursery.  Don’t feel bad if you need to have your babies taken to the nursery while you attempt to catch up on some sleep.  If you only have an hour and a half to sleep, it is better if it is uninterrupted.  

Make sure your nurses are aware of your feeding schedule and when the next feeding begins.  Most of our nurses were good at bringing them back on time.  However, one time I woke up and I noticed it was 15 minutes late for feeding time.  I walked down the hall to the nursery and saw two volunteers rocking our screaming babies.  I knocked on the window and motioned for them to bring them out.  Our nurse opened the door and said, “oh, is it time?”  I had to bite my tongue.  When your babies have a stomach the size of a pea pod, 15 minutes is a long time to be late.  

After you get the hang of things in the hospital, they have to kick you out.  Going home with twins is terrifying.  You will never have a more nerve racking, bone shaking, perspiring car ride than the first drive with your twins.  They are so tiny, you can’t be sure if they are fitting correctly in their car seats.  You drive half of the speed limit, and tense up with every bump.  If you ever had an excuse to pee your pants, this would be the time. 

Once we got home, the feeding schedule stayed the same, but Amy was more mobile.  Amy continued to feed one baby at a time for another week, then transitioned to feeding both at once.  We got this large horseshoe shaped pillow called “my breast friend”.  It is designed for feeding twins.  Basically, it works as a platform that surrounds Amy and two babies can lay on it as they eat.  Let this PG rated google image demonstrate it for you…

Amy got the hang of feeding both babies at once, and now she is a pro.  It does make it difficult to travel, because Amy needs a large, comfortable, practical spot for feeding.  She needs to have access to a couch or bed every three hours! Singleton mothers have the ability to hold a baby up under a cover to feed practically anywhere they go, but doing it with two just doesn’t work.  Amy could feed them one at a time, but the key for twins is to keep them on the same schedule.  If one baby wakes up to eat in the middle of the night, you wake the other one up to eat as well.  If you don’t, you might find yourself waking up 30 minutes later with another hungry baby.

Once Amy got full mobility back, I didn’t have to do as much.  But if you are a father of twins, you should still expect to get up with every feeding.  When Amy sits in bed with “the breast friend” around her, she needs me to hand the babies to her.  Mid-feeding, I change the babies and hand them back to her.  This way, when they are finished, we can burp them and lay them straight down to sleep.  This would be very difficult for Amy without help.  During the day when I am at work, Amy sets the babies in boppy pillows on either side of her as she gets situated with “the breast friend”.  

For the first two months, the babies stuck to the three hour feeding schedule, even through the night.  Eventually, they lasted four hours, and sometimes five hours if we were lucky.    Then one magical night, the stars aligned and the twins slept for eight hours!  This beautiful night was just two nights prior to writing this blog.  I never imagined that night would ever come.  Last night they slept for 6 hours, which is still something to celebrate!  Even more exciting about last night, it was our first attempt to have them sleep in their cribs at night.  Up until then, we had them sleeping in rock-in-plays next to our bed.  It is recommended that babies sleep on their backs in their cribs from birth, but as newborns, our twins wouldn’t sleep in their cribs at all.  Many parents recommended the rock-in-plays, and they were a life saver! 

Donovan and Hazel may be getting better through the night, but at 3 months, they still eat every three hours during the day.  Sometimes, they start screaming for food 30 minutes early.  It will be an ever changing process, but we are loving every minute with our babies.