Deciding to nurse your new twins puts you into a fairly select category. So few women in this country nurse even singletons for any time at all, and so many twins are born prematurely that the difficulties in getting started are often insurmountable. I was lucky—my twins were full term, they were dedicated to figuring out this nursing thing, and I was fortunate enough to figure out the process with my oldest singleton.  My main obstacle to nursing was my very exhausted body. But I give women who learn nursing with twins a tremendous amount of credit, because you’re so insecure when you’re starting, and twin nursing often takes more time and resources than one would think possible. A first time nurser might think she wasn’t doing it properly and give up too soon, but I’m here to tell you that it absolutely can be done so long as you don’t mind being patient with yourself, your babies, and with watching your food bills double.

I hadn’t noticed this with my singleton, but as the nurses in the birthing center explained to me, it takes a tremendous amount of resources (i.e., food and sleep) to get your breasts up to speed in the nursing department. Colostrum is right there for the taking, but it takes the body time to get the breasts producing milk full time. I’m glad someone told me this, because the second night in the hospital, my daughter finished nursing what I had and was left hungry. I was completely terrified—I had to give her something more, but I’d read too much about the slippery slope of formula. What if I gave her formula today, and she needed it again tomorrow, and my body just never made enough milk? What if my body wouldn’t make enough milk anyway? I had also heard too many women explain to me that they did not nurse because they hadn’t enough milk, which I had never understood… but now maybe it was happening to me. Now I had twins, and maybe my body wasn’t up to the task, especially after the last terrible trimester. I was so frightened that my body had been broken and couldn’t take care of itself or my new babies.

We gave my daughter the formula in a little cup—about an ounce—and she stopped crying and went to sleep. We did that once a day for about a week, for both my son and daughter, and after that my milk caught up. I can only look back and shake my head in wonder at what my body did for my babies and me. I healed from a gigantic wound left by the double placenta, bounced back from diminished liver function from my toxemia, AND produced enough milk to feed my two babies to the point where they each gained three pounds by their one month appointment. I know I’m not some sort of superwoman—this is what we are made to do! Our bodies are capable of feats beyond our comprehension of we trust them to do their work. I feel humble, and beholden to my own body.