Triplets and more: breastfeeding higher order multiples
Please comment here to add any perspectives you have about breastfeeding higher order multiples. Comments will be kept open indefinitely so that moms of multiples can continue to learn from each other. Please keep your comments respectful and encouraging.
I have triplets. It was important to me to BF them. It was also very important to me to keep them on a schedule. In order to keep the schedule, I felt I needed to know exactly how much food they were getting. This ment that in order to feed my babes breast milk, I needed to pump. I did and my babes got breastmilk for 7 months. The first 6 weeks I faithfully pumped every 3 hours. I produced a ton and they ate so little (being preemies). I was able to get so much freezer stock that my freezer only held breast milk and I had the top 1/3 of my chest freezer (no pun intended!lol) full, too. After 6 weeks I started to gradually slow down how often I pumped (It was getting too busy to keep the every 3 hour schedule) I would use the “fresh” milk and some of the freezer stock if needed. I did this until I was only pumping before bed. I was able to go 7 months. I wish I could have gone the whole 1st year. (So does our pocket book – yozah is formula expensive!!!!!) I dearly missed the bonding that comes with bf your babies. (I have 2 older children that I bf for 1 year each) But, it was nice to “escape” and be alone to pump for 15 minutes every so often.
I breastfed without a schedule because it was important for me to have one-on-one time with the babies (so I staggered their feedings). But I didn’t have any other children at home, which made it easier for me to let the babies set their own routines.
I also gave up pumping, which very definitely hurt my supply — I was never able to breastfeed more than two babies at any given feeding (meaning either breastfeeding or offering EBM). If I could do it over, I would always always always have pumped after every session.
The whole story of our breastfeeding journey is quite long and convoluted, but I ended up BF’ing two of my babies for 3.5 years and the third one weaned (the bottles were too tempting) just before her first birthday. The full story is on my blog, via the “Attachment Parenting” category — it’s just too long, and in too many parts, to provide better links here.