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.

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When you are surprised with twins, so many expectations are chucked out the window.  I certainly knew that when my second child was born, my oldest would have to endure a period of readjustment when the addition arrived and he was no longer the focus of the universe. I had seen other children deal with the situation, and it wasn’t pretty. And no wonder! No matter how hard we try not to spoil our first and only child, it seems to be completely impossible to avoid doing so. God knows we thought we were trying! Now I can only laugh at our self-delusion. Parental restrictions, such as they are, are just no match for the day-to-day, minute-by-minute sibling wrangling, and I did assume that since we were having twins, our son’s transition from baby to oldest was going to be much more complicated.

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I don’t know who takes credit for the term “It takes a village to raise a child,” but it surely wasn’t said by anyone in this country, in this generation.
            I KNOW it takes a village to raise a child. Believe me. When it’s four o’clock in the afternoon and both twins are sure it’s mama-hold-me time and the supper needs cooking and the four-year-old is asking for a story, it’s then I know that I’m not supposed to be doing this by myself.
            And I’m relatively lucky. My husband works at home three days a week, and while I can’t pass a screaming baby to him on a regular basis, he can help me out of the really tough spots. And still, we struggle. We lose our tempers, we get tired, we get frustrated, often at the same time, and we know we’re not supposed to, because we’re the Mama and the Da and there’s no one else here.
            I remember when I left college I was bound and determined to settle down ANYWHERE but where I grew up. This annoyed my husband, because where I grew up (the Albany, NY area) is a well-rounded sort of place, city and country in relatively close proximity. But I was tired of, and afraid of, going back. I’d found a new person in me while away at college, and I was so worried about the old, insecure, gullible me coming back. Going back to my childhood place where I was those things seemed to be foolishly tempting fate. (more…)