Twin Talks
Breastfeeding Twins Night

[00:00:00]

Please be advised, this transcription was performed from a company independent of New Mommy Media, LLC. As such, translation was required which may alter the accuracy of the transcription.

[Theme Music]

VERONICA TINGZON: Breastfeeding twins are a monumental task for any mom. It can be very manageable during the day time when there may be other helping hands around and you're wide awake. But what about those 3AM feedings? How do you manage feeding two hungry babies at multiple times during the night when you're tired and groggy yourself? Should you try tandem feeding them or just one at a time? Can you do it on your own? How can your partner help so that you both get some sleep? I'm Veronica Tingzon, a lactation consultant and I'm here to talk about breastfeeding your twins at night. This is Twin Talks.

[Intro/Theme Music]

CHRISTINE STEWART-FITZGERALD: Welcome to Twin talks, broadcasting from the Birth Education Center, San Diego. Twin Talks is your weekly online on the go support group for expecting and new parent to twins. I'm your host Christine Stewart Fitzgerald.

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And before we get started, we're going to meet our panelists here and I want to turn over to Sunny, our, who is our panelist and producer, and talk about our, how you can get involved in the Twin Talks program.

SUNNY GAULT: That's right. So, we have some segments that I think you guys will enjoy. It's always fun to get people participating within the show so it’s not just us. But, you guys become part of the show and the first segment is called our “Twin Oops” segment, and it's where you guys share your funny stories of things that have happened between you and your twins and we can share that with other twin parents out there. We all get a nice little laugh at that.

We have an “Ask the Expert” segment where you can submit questions. They could be twin related questions or they're breastfeeding questions or whatever questions you have regarding parenting. We have experts that can answer those questions. And there’s tons more segments, I can go on and on. But if you go to our website www.NewMommyMedia.com and go to the show section. Click on Twin Talks and then under there, there's a section called Segments and it lists all the different ways that you can get involved.

So check that out and there’s a couple different ways that you can submit for those segments. You can go to our website at www.NewMommyMedia.com and go to the contact link or you can submit through our voicemail. No one’s going to pick up the phone.You don't have to worry about that. It going to go straight to voicemail and you can leave a message. And that number 619-866-4775.

CHRISTINE STEWART-FITZGERALD: All right and so Sunny, tell us a little bit about your family.

SUNNY GAULT: Yes. So, I am a twin mom myself but I have two singletons before I had my twins. So my oldest is five, a boy. Then I have a three year old boy. And then my twins are 22 months so, you know, creeping up here in two years and I'm still breastfeeding my girls. But I'm not, I don't have to do it through the night. They're really good sleepers. I mean, they'll sleep for like, I don't know, something ridiculous, like 12 hours at night. It's crazy. I'm very blessed in that regard.

But I do remember the beginning; it was very challenging especially in the beginning because they didn't latch. They were preemies; they were born at 35 weeks and so. In the very beginning, they weren't latching really well. And so I did a lot of pumping and then I had to get up throughout the night. And Ill share my experience as we go but. It hasn't always been, you know, sunshine and rainbows.

CHRISTINE STEWART-FITZGERALD: I think for any twin mom, I don't know. Does any twin mom have sunshine and rainbows? I would love to meet her.

And how about Shannon on the phone with us. How about your story?

SHANNON: I actually have two sets of twins. So I have almost three year old twin boys and my girls just turned one at the beginning of September. And I also have an almost seven year old daughter so I did breastfeed her. And I breast fed my boys who kind of similar to Sunny. I have a lot of issues so, it wasn't just like when he roll over and stick my boob in your mouth like that. I have to get up and pump, try latching baby, finger tube feed baby. Have my husband help. It was lots of fun. And my girls who just turned one, we are still nursing and unfortunately, they were sleeping well for a little while and they’re actually getting up multiple times at night. So, I am, you know, I am nursing a lot through the night.

CHRISTINE STEWART-FITZGERALD: Oh, man. And you know, it's, it's, it’s those molars. You know. I always find when they’re teething. It’s like, it screws everything up. You’re like what? You want to nurse again? Really?

SUNNY GAULT: They give you the false sense of security by giving you that moment.

SHANNON: One of my two girls only had one tooth that just came in when she turned one and now I think they're all coming in like at the same time and it's terrible. It’s tough. It's awful.

SUNNY GAULT: Yes. And it really is really painful. We’ve done a whole episode on teething and it's really painful. I mean, if you thing something breaking through the gum line, like, and having multiple teeth do that at once, like. Thank goodness it happens when were babies because we would not be able to handle it.

VERONICA TINGZON: And that's why they're nursing more. I mean A. it’s soothing on the gums and B, I mean were releasing hormones that are feel good hormones for them. So it’s actually a pain duller for them so. You will get sleep back someday. I promise.

CHRISTINE STEWART-FITZGERALD: Oh, man. You know, so, I mean, I'm your host. I’m Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald and I, you know my story is, I don't know. It's probably somewhere in the middle. I guess. So, so my girls are five years old now. Oh, wait a minute. We just had a birthday las week. They’re six, yes. So, yes. We breastfed and then we did supplement with formula and you know. And of course, I always you know, wondered do we really have to do that? Well you know, I had supply issues and so I would say that, that I think some, to Sunny. I mean it started out a little bit rough and we did the supplementation with the little tubes and so yeah.

I remember you know, both daytime and night time, not only trying to get babies to latch but then trying to get tape this little tiny tube on onto my breast and using a little syringe and coordinating this and giving the nipple, the mouth, I mean, we needed four hands. That was pretty crazy so and then thankful I have this singleton and she's almost three and she was exclusively breastfed and I got to say.

I mean after having the twins, everything was like, oh piece of cake, easy. But she didn't want to give it up and so she, I mean we went to I think like a good 19, 20 months with her. She was, she enjoyed it and so, I mean it was night and day as far as singleton and twins.

[Theme Music]

SUNNY GAULT: Okay, so. Before we kick off our discussion today on breastfeeding twins at night, I want to share an app actually that I used when my girls were first born. I knew about the app beforehand. We actually talked about in on our breastfeeding show The Boob Group. So I kind of had the heads up about it. It's called nuunest. It's spelled N-U-U-N-E-S-T and you do have to pay for it. It cost $2.99. But then that's it. You don’t have to pay for any other upgrades or anything like that.

What I love about this is that it was created by registered nurses and lactation consultants. So there are two women that created it together. It is adaptable for twins, which not all apps are and because it was created by registered nurses and lactation consultants, they have tons and tons of great information on here.

Especially for those 3AM feedings that you know, something you know, you’ve got a question about something or whatever you're just trying to pass the time. You’re just an educate yourself. It's all built in to this app and so they basically, everything’s relevant to your baby's age so when you first sign up for it, you can have multiple accounts on why it would work on twin parents and you put in your baby's age and then it gives you tips you know.

When you first log in at the topic, gives you tips about you know how to care for your baby, what your baby's going through or what mom is even going through. If it's immediately postpartum. So, tips at the top and then the main categories are breastfeeding, weight, all about baby, they have a section about vitamin D, expressing breastmilk so pumping, diapers and a section for all about mom too and there’s a summary where you can kind of get the summary of all the information that you added in.

But you know I loved it. I really, it really helped me with those nigh time feedings at night because I would wake up and, like I said before, I wasn't breast feeding in the very beginning. I was pumping constantly. I was like pumping every two hours or every three hours and I was doing that throughout the night as well, because I was just so scared of not having enough milk for the babies and I never had real supply issues in the past but I thought, I can my body give this much milk to these babies. And, you know, they're growing and I got to make more milk and I was really kind of pushing myself to make as much breastmilk as possible.

But it was great because, you know, in the breastfeeding section again there’s tips at the top that kind of, you know, give you an idea of what to expect. You can, it’s real easy to enter in the exact time that you breast fed. Did you breastfeed on the right or at the left and it saves all the information for you so you could go back and kind of see charts and graphs and stuff like that. And there's just a lot of other good information.

If you happen to be pumping, like I used to have a lot in the beginning. You know, it’s real easy to enter the day, the time, how many ounces. There’s even a timer on it which I didn't really use. I don’t really like to time either my breastfeeding or my pumping times but if you were limited for time for whatever reason. If you, you know, had to be somewhere, had some sort of deadline, there's a time there.

Diapers, I used that a lot too because that helped me, you know, know how much milk they were getting and you know, are we getting enough wet diapers, are we getting enough poopy diapers. But anyways, a really good app I think for parents of multiples and I really like the fact that it was created by register nurses and lactation consultants. I just have a lot of faith in that.

So, anyway, I just wanted to kind of throw that out there and I know you guys don't have, you know, specific experience with this app per se but would you think about, you know, kind of the overview, you know, that I've given you. Christine, any ideas?

CHRISTINE STEWART-FITZGERALD: You know, I mean, I've, I did check it out on the website and you know, I have to say, one of the things I do like about this is that it, it's so comprehensive because, you know, I've seen apps in the past that are really more about like scheduling, you know, sort of like, ok the baby is doing this and I got to track, you know, more on the tracking aspect of things. And then the other some kind of knowledge bases out there. But I mean, I like the idea that you can, you know, you can schedule and sort of like the caring for your baby but you also have this access to knowledge base as you baby develops.

SUNNY GAULT: Alright. Well, we'll go ahead and we'll post a link to it on our website so you guys can check it out if you want to. Again, it's called nuunest and I know it's available on IOS so.

[Theme Music]

CHRISTINE STEWART-FITZGERALD: Today we're here with Veronica Tingzon, she's here to talk about one of the toughest challenges moms face. Breastfeeding twins at night time. So we want to help all those twin moms out there, especially those with newborns who are struggling with feeding and getting enough sleep for themselves. So thanks for joining us Veronica.

VERONICA TINGZON: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

CHRISTINE STEWART-FITZGERALD: Well, you know, let’s kind of talk about just newborn twins in general. I mean, how often do they need to eat, you know when they're brand new and then, I mean, how many night time feedings can we expect?

VERONICA TINGZON: Well there, let’s just talk about, any baby, you know, and it’s not, you know just because it’s a mom of twins. A baby should eat somewhere between 8 and 12 times in a 24-hour period. However the baby’s tummy is designed to intake the food is going to determine how often the baby is going to feed.

So now, you're talking about twins here so you multiply that by two. So if, you know, I’m good with my math here, you're going to be feeding somewhere between 16 and 24 times in a 24-hour period. It doesn't leave a lot of mommy time. But there's a kind of like what Sunny was talking about.You know, with her babies being in the NICU. That can actually be kind of a little bit of a blessing. To start out with, I mean it's very nerve wrecking and it's, you know, you’re sleep is just disturbed because you’re going somewhere and you know you have to plan for your day to go and be with your babies and all that.

But on the other hand, especially the, the very low birth weight babies that are in the NICU and a lot of the times, twins are a very low birth weight babies. They’re not eating right away. They’re not actually being fed or they’re being fed by the tube or something like that so what you really going to be dedicating your time to is the pumping. And luckily those pumps come in you know, dual suction form. You can just cut out the double work right at once as if your babies were tandem feeding.

So that's, you know, like I said it's kind of that double edge sort. Of course you want to be with your babies but on the other hand you know you have a little bit of time to assimilate into this new role of being a multiples’ mommy or twins’ mommy.

But then there are the babies who are born either very close to term or at term which that's been happening a lot more lately. We know how to take care of our bodies better especially with twins and we have babies that are being held in the womb for a lot longer. And we’re having those multiple gestations go very close to term or to term. And those babies come out feeding pretty much just fine and they go right to the breast and this is where the, I don’t want to say the problem starts, but this is the one where a lot of times except for Shannon's experience who she had already breast fed twins before but for first time twins feeder, that could be where the, oh my god, how do I do this.

Situation starts because you don't know if they're eating enough. Sometimes babies aren't great suckers so they're not ringing in the milk supply thatyou need for twins to be fed well. You know, that's usually where we have moms doing some back up pumping as well so here they are feeding twins. They're doing back up pumping to ensure that the milk supply is protected and, oh my god, this poor mom is so tired.

CHRISTINE STEWART-FITZGERALD: That was my story, because my twins were born thirty nine weeks, five days. And so yes, we came home in three days and so they were hungry little girls. And so I was kind of doing the same thing of feeding and then pumping immediately after. The feeding, so when you talked about the time frame, yes. I mean if we, we didn’t really start the tandem feeding right off the bat, because that was sort of the next step. Most moms don’t. So yes, we would do one baby and on to the next baby and then pumping after that and so each baby, let’s say, at that point, it would take I'm like, you know, easily 30, 40 minutes each plus pumping for another so that’s you know, a good two hours.

SUNNY GAULT: Absolutely. I would always say, doing the, the feeding the twins and then the supplemental pumping afterwards is that really like having triplets. You know, because you’re something is constantly on your breast. You know.

Just like I'm there right now.

SUNNY GAULT: We called it triple, triple feedings.

VERONICA TINGZON: It has a term. It's a crazy term.

CHRISTINE STEWART-FITZGERALD: So then, so night, I mean if we’re then talking about, just about the night time segment then so that's really is pretty much the same as the, the daytime as far as the frequency goes?

VERONICA TINGZON: Yes unfortunately. I mean, if here's the thing. Scientifically, if you want to have milk, you have to have something on your breasts every couple to 3 hours so that you have, you know, you secrete your hormones you're, you're prolactin levels, kind of almost like how you secrete insulin and all of those things. They have a rise and a fall.

And so as you’re emptying your breasts, your prolactin levels actually go up because you’re telling your body, make more. And so then you’re filling up and as the breasts sit bearing hold the milk longer and longer and longer and longer and longer and longer and you're not emptying it, you're body goes, maybe I don't need it anymore and so it's kind of a you don't use it you lose it type of situation.

So, what happens is if, oh god I’m so tired, I can’t wake up right now and oh gosh well maybe that one bottle of formula might husband can give the baby right now and then you know I'll just sleep and you don't wake up to pump or whatever and then that's where a lot of moms say, oh I didn't have enough milk for my babies. And it's maybe the capability was there most of the times the capability is there. It's few and far between where there are situations where the milk making capability is not actually there.

But let’s say the milk capability was there but she loses her milk supply because she's not activating those hormones and that milk so as often as she should be. And then she doesn't. She truly fulfills her internal speech that says, I don’t have enough milk. She fulfills that prophecy. And then she doesn't have enough milk because it goes away. And those first three weeks, let me tell you, the first three weeks are the ones. And they're the hardest weeks. Unfortunately but those are the weeks that matter the most to the milk making, supply making.

SUNNY GAULT: I remember after I had both my boys, my singleton pregnancies, when I got home from the hospital, those first few nights, I was, I wake up just dripping in breast milk. Like, I've totally like, my whole, I was just saturated. My bed and everything and I remember thinking, this is my body, you know, trying to figure out how much milk to make and because and you know, because I only had one baby, you know, and the baby was nursing, you know, however often he wanted to nurse. That really was extra milk that my baby didn't need.

So my body kind of tapered off from that and I remember thinking with the twins, when I was still pregnant with them thinking, okay, I can't let that important time frame where I’m like literally my waking up, my shirt just soaked. I have to take advantage of that time. That's wasted milk. I know my body can make that much milk. Just let me go to waste, so to speak, because my singleton babies didn't need that. But I know now you know, my twin babies are going to need that.

So, with the twins. I never had that situation because, like I said, every two hours I was pumping, I was doing whatever and just trying to keep that up cause I knew my body would naturally do that.

CHRISTINE STEWART-FITZGERALD: That's great that you knew ahead in time that you’re capable of it so then you didn't have sort of the mind set or the message, well you know.

SUNNY GAULT: I still doubted.

CHRISTINE STEWART-FITZGERALD: I think it's within every mother. The doubt!

VERONICA TINGZON: What's really cool about the, the sleeping with, you know, and breastfeeding twins is that if you put that investment in upfront, you really don’t have to work as much later on down the line. I mean, Shannon, would you agree about that?

SHANNON: Definitely! We closed up to it both set of twins and eventually it was to the point of I could just roll over and put my boob in there. Now I can go back to sleep.

CHRISTINE STEWART-FITZGERALD: That's awesome. That's awesome. I love that.

SHANNON: It became, you see, it was a process with a first step. But eventually, it's like, oh this is easy. Like I don't even remember that I had any issues you know. Because, unless you of course they can remember, how awful they are. But it does become really easy, and then of course it definitely works out.

CHRISTINE STEWART-FITZGERALD: So now, how about beyond this initial phase, I mean what's the, the frequency look like as they get older?

VERONICA TINGZON: You know here's the thing. People tend to forget that babies still need to eat every two to three hours up until the time that they start receiving weaning foods. So, that's up to six months. They need to eat every two to three hours. And again, it doesn't change. You know its 8 to 12 in a 24 hour period. End of story.

Once they start going to the complimentary foods, then you've got, you know depends on how much they're eating. If you’re, you know, giving them like Gergber, things like that, you know the, the prepackaged jar foods. You know they have very low calorie supplies so they’re still needing, you know, good supply of calories which they're really going to be receiving from the breastmilk so, you know, six to seven times. And some babies are still going 8 to 12 times.

There's a misnomer that by the time that they should be eating those complimentary foods, that they should be sleeping through the night. No. There's still going to be things that are going to be knocking them off of their sleeping patterns like cognitive changes in their brains, physical developments, teething.

I think Shannon knows about that one. And so, all of those things getting ill, you know. All of those things really their source of comfort or their source of kind of grounding themselves back to reality and centering themselves is by going to the breast. And it is part of their cognitive and neuro development to come back to the breast so. They might start waking up at night again and feeding more often so who's to say, you know, there's really not a set number but that 8-12 in a 24-hour period, that one’s a really, really, really important goal to meet, at least the very minimum those, that 8 times in those first six months. And they kept their supply up and it’s great.

CHRISTINE STEWART-FITZGERALD: We're going to take a break, when we come back, we're going to take a look at some different strategies that parents have taken to optimize their sleeping when they're feeding their twins at night.

[Theme Music]

CHRISTINE STEWART-FITZGERALD: Well, welcome back. Today, we're talking with Veronica Tingzon who's helping us understand what we can expect in feeding multiples at night and she's sharing some strategies for making this whole process easier. Let’s change gears, and I wanted to talk about a little bit about bedroom setups since we're talking night time. Babies at night and you know, most often, you know, twin parents are keeping the babies close by in their bedroom whether it's a bassinet or and we do talk about the possibility of co-sleeping and that's a whole another discussion on itself. But I mean, what do you recommend to new parents as far as just really facilitating this process of, of night time feedings?

VERONICA TINGZON:Well, I love having those, the, the co-sleepers, you know and having, and for twins, I've had a lot of parents say that they have to co-sleepers on either side and then dad would just hand the other baby over type of thing. It's really all about family practicality and it’s kind of like you've got to discuss this with your partner as well because that person's also involved in this, you know.

If we're going to bed share, we're going to have the babies in the room, or we're going to have the babies in a separate room. I usually do recommend having the babies in the room especially if you're breast feeding. You know, it is just so much more practical. The co-sleepers are wonderful. I bed shared with my singletons. I don’t know about bed sharing with twins. But my father was a twin and he did breastfeed until he was 5 years old and his twin sister breastfed until she was 4 years old. And he told me, he remembered sleeping in bed with his mom and just he would breastfeed and so you knew, it was one of those things where I always thought that twins breastfeed. That's all they do. My dad always told me about that, so.

CHRISTINE STEWART-FITZGERALD: That's great. So can we talk about, dream feedings. I mean I know is it possible for mom and her baby to kind of doze during the night time feedings? I mean that would be a deal to get you knows two things at once.

VERONICA TINGZON: Absolutely! You know, I remember waking up multiple times. You know, just going, oh my gosh, my baby was feeding on me and I just, when did that happen. How did he get there? So I mean I, yes-yes. You know and some moms will you know, with the twins, obviously, you can’t just do a side lying like a singleton mom does but some moms do that, you know, laid back nursing and just a fact of the, the breastfeeding itself is that you’re releasing hormones that make you sleepy and there are times when you're going to fall asleep with your baby on the breast.

I also talked about with some of my twins’ moms to use what I call a nest and I love those nursing pillows that have the beveled edges so that the babies can't roll off and then just setting up pillows all around and sometimes it means kicking daddy to the curb or something or to the sofa. And just putting pillows all around and having one of those pillows that are kind of like the reading pillows. And then having a pillow behind the neck so you could actually fall asleep comfortably while sitting up. If you don't want to do the reclined breast feeding laid back breastfeeding type of situation.

CHRISTINE STEWART-FITZGERALD: I kind of remember that I had one of those I don't know you say it's like the upper half of a chair you know if you wanted to sit on your bed and you got the arms support. I don’t know what they’re called.

VERONICA TINGZON: They're called reading pillows.

CHRISTINE STEWART-FITZGERALD: So I do remember you know, doing, using that and kind of like you said, having to put pillows sort of on the, the arms on the inside to fill in the gap so to speak and then being able to recline a little bit and I think this was not, I think I did try a couple times to having both babies sort of on top of me while laying back and giving a little bit of Zss. But, you know, still thinking about, okay, there are two babies but you know I think I really kept up with that probably could have been one of my favorite positions.

VERONICA TINGZON: You know, It's, it's,I’ve seen it so many times and I think it's wonderful and we have mommas who have just given birth and the ones who have successfully vaginally given birth to twins.We do that first thing right out of the starting gate. You know we, some might recline them, not completely laid back but just a little tiny bit of a of a reclining I guess like kind of an obtuse angle, I guess you could call it and just plop the babies on. And that biological nursing hold. And some moms they love that so much that I just did that from that point on and it's just natural.

CHRISTINE STEWART-FITZGERALD: How about you Shannon? How did you do the night Nursing? Did you have any, you know, special positions?

SHANNON: I actually used my pillow often. So I always had my pillow next to my bed. And I'm very lucky. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for a lot of moms. But my husband was like a huge part of my breastfeeding journey. Both of them and he was like, even working as early and hard as he does.Like he was always up getting me baby, getting me water, getting me whatever I need and he would often like what the babies do, what should be nice.

So he would have a baby, and I would have one and like, if one woke up I usually would be like give me the other one. And kind of like stick them on the pillow at the same time so that they were feeding through the night at the same time. And I wasn't like going back and forth every hour or every two hours from one baby to the next. And that’s the early stages. We have to remember like that's the beginning.

Now I mean I haven't used the pillow since my girls were like 6 months because they're huge, first of all. And second of all, they just, like I said, we didn't have any complications so it was really easy for me to just kind of like sit up with pillows behind me. Kind of like you're talking about and then just kind of like cradle them on my breast and like that kind of like snuggled into my arms half asleep. I'm probably asleep with my head being right over them and drool dripping on them as they nurse.

CHRISTINE STEWART-FITZGERALD: Wow! But you know, I think that's great and it sounds like you were able to do tandem nursing pretty early on. You know, for your, for both of them so that's, that's impressive.

SHANNON: I definitely, I would say that like I definitely tried to do tandem especially with my first two and they were also always kind of small. My girls being much bigger than my boys ever were already, almost as big as them already, it was harder to use that pillow and sometimes even hard to just like tandem them. Sometime I find it easy to just like take one at a time. I'd be like, hey, you want to eat? Come on, let’s go. But I did definitely try to focus on tandem nursing them through the night.

CHRISTINE STEWART-FITZGERALD: Now you know, I know, Veronica, you mentioned that I mean like the night time is like one of the key periods for the prolactin and really you know the stimulation so I would imagine tandem feeding is a really good way of increasing the supply and I know you also mentioned pumping, now do you recommend pumping at night time as well?

VERONICA TINGZON: You know that one again, I'm on the fence about. I mean it’s, it is a great thing but I also need moms to get sleep. You know. Sleep is restoration and I really, unless she is just really struggling with the milk supply or she's got very-very ill babies or what not. Definitely for a NICU separation, you have to pump. That's just the way this but when the babies are home and actually feeding from the breast and thriving pretty well, I would probably just say sleep if the babies are going to be feeding at night.

Now if you have the routine where you're handing the baby off to either you know daddy or grandma or you know somebody else, a nanny or something, then you need the stimulation, you have to pump. But I would necessarily breastfeed then pump, unless you are just really struggling.

CHRISTINE STEWART-FITZGERALD: Now I was curious now, Shannon, because you mentioned your, your husband was you know a huge you know part of your breastfeeding journey especially at night so what did your routine look like especially at night?

SHANNON: So, again it, it was so different between the newborn stages and the later stages. With my boys, it was having to actually physically get up because there were latching issues and we would have to finger tube feed. This was early on, so my husband would I would pump and he would take my pumped breast milk and finger tube feed it to the baby that wasn't latching and then I would nurse the other one while he was doing that and then try to bring the baby who finger tube feeds to my breast as well even though he wasn't really latching.

got to, you know, get him used to that. So that was like not fun. That was definitely a problem that I had. And once that kind of went away, it was more of, it just became a lot easier of just having my pillow next to my bed so when they woke up I can, daddy can just hand me baby or baby. I would put my pillow on and he would get the babies. It's basically what I almost always look like for me.

CHRISTINE STEWART-FITZGERALD: And now, you know, somewhere for me as well.I mean I think you know my girls were pretty adapted at nursing you know after that initial stage and so yes, I would stay in bed and my husband, you know we had them in the room. He would get them he diaper them and bring them over to me and I’d stay in bed and, and nurse them and mostly one at a time but then I kind of dream.We could do a little bit of dosing and then he’d get the next one and just start all over again.

And your earlier point, you talked about sometimes having supplementing, like we did continue supplementing with bottles and I think it did affect my milk production. I mean absolutely. So you know, sometimes we did sort of take you know my, my husband would go and you know give them bottle and let me sleep and that did help a little bit. And I do know there are you know some moms who do sort of a more of a shift approach. I’m going to breastfeed here and then okay next time it's your turn, you're going to bottle feed expressed milk or the formula. And I guess there would be some advantages sleep wise but then it sounds like there could be some disadvantages as far as the milk production goes.

VERONICA TINGZON: Absolutely! I mean its detrimental to the milk supply so basically what you have to do is when you’re deciding to formulate your plan for how you're going to take care of this. You have to put your priority checklist in order. What's more important to me, is it the milk making or the sleeping? You know, and you have to be very honest with yourself. And so if you’re saying, you know, well the sleeping is more important then you take the shift approach and you'd be a half and halfer and there's nothing wrong with it. That’s just your style.

Whereas for me, personally, you know the milk making and I breastfed my younger son until he was 2 years old so I know that the milk making even through studying to become an I.B.C.L.C and going through my boards and absolutely being crazy with sleep deprivation was more important to me than anything else. And so you have to put your priorities into order and you have to also discuss that with your partner because your partner is part of this also. And so what are your partner’s priorities as well.

Now, obviously it's mom’s choice first and foremost but we've also got to take into the babies' choice as always going to be the having the healthier milk. Having the best start possible so then you got to take all three of those choices into consideration and formulate a plan. That’s going to be the best for your family.

CHRISTINE STEWART-FITZGERALD: Okay, were going towrap this up and I just want to say thanks so much to everyone for joining us today and be sure to visit ourepisode page on our website for more information about Veronica and as well as links to additional resources. And this conversation continues for members of our Twin Talks Club.

And after the show, Veronica will share some of her favorite types of baby gear that help with night time feedings. For more information about the twin Talks Club, visit our website, www.NewMommyMedia.com .

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SUNNY GAULT: Alright, so we have a question from one of our listeners and this comes from Becky and Becky wants to know the difference between the New Mommy Media App that you guys have probably heard us promote on the show and the Twin Talks App. Okay, so here's the deal Becky. The New Mommy Media App is a great way to listen to all of our podcasts through one app. So if you've been listening to some of our other shows, it's just a little bit more convenient to just have one app on your phone where you can access all of the podcasts, not just for Twin Talks but the other shows that we produce as well.

So I would say that's a main reason. A lot of people choose to do that. It's just the simplicity of it. You still have the ability to rate and share the different episodes and download them to your phone ifyou want so a lot of the features are still the same. It's really about how many apps do you want on your phone. So hopefully that answers you question. And Becky Thanks so much for your submission.

CHRISTINE STEWART-FITZGERALD: Well, that wraps up our show for today. We appreciate you listening to Twin Talks.

Don’t forget to check out our sister show:

• Preggie Pals for expecting parents
• The Boob Group for moms who breastfeed their babies
• Parent Savers your parenting resource on the go and our newest show,
• Newbies for new parents.

This is Twin Talks. Parenting times two.

[Disclaimer]

This has been a New Mommy Media production. The information and material contained in this episode are presented for educational purposes only. Statements and opinions expressed in this episode are not necessarily those of New Mommy Media and should not be considered facts. While such information and materials are believed to be accurate, it is not intended to replace or substitute for professional, medical advice or care and should not be used for diagnosing or treating health care problem or disease or prescribing any medications. If you have questions or concerns regarding your physical or mental health or the health of your baby, please seek assistance from a qualified health care provider.

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