Nursing vs. Bottle Feeding/Pumping
I hope I don't get any grief for saying so but nursing your baby is way easier than bottle feeding and especially easier than bottle feeding AND pumping. Now, don't get me wrong - I know that getting good at nursing can be really, really hard. Especially with twins. Especially with baby(ies) born early who won't latch. That being said, once you have figured things out, it is so much simpler to just pop a boob in a baby's mouth than prepare a bottle (pump and/or mix formula) and then have to worry about cleaning said bottles. So much of our time in the first month or so was devoted to those fucking bottles. And pump parts. I felt like I was living in a sea of plastic. After two months, when I finally became fed up with things and realized I would need to manage my time better once I was on my own with the twins, I figured out some short cuts to the bottle/pump madness. But even then, it's way more work than nursing a baby.
There are the downsides. No one else can feed Matteo for me. (He has only had 3 or 4 bottles in his little life). There is just a bit of anxiety over nursing in public. He still eats more often than the twins ever did. There is no real way to do it in the car, which has been an issue more times than I would have expected. But on the whole, life is so simple this way. I don't have to worry about being out too long with the twins because I don't have a bottle for the baby. I never have to run to the store because I ran out of formula or bottle liners.
I don't know how I would feel if I had the experience of nursing twins to compare this to. I imagine its very difficult to do that out in public, if only that it takes twice as long which might be uncomfortable for some. But in the first few months with the twins, I was inside most of the time anyway, just getting out for quick errands like Bjs or going for long walks, usually right after they ate. I would love to hear what moms of twins think about their successful nursing experience. Did you often feel like it was harder than bottle feeding would have been? Or did you think you had it easier because you were able to nurse?
I am with you 100%. I mean, it's a pain when no one else can feed the babies, but so much easier! No packing any food, no bottles, just me & babies. I fed them one at a time anyway, so it was no different out in public. I think it's hard to get past the first few weeks, but once I was there, I found it easy-peasy. (I mean, besides the three cases of mastitis and the leaking breasts and all---but you get that pumping too, right?)
ReplyDeleteI sure am hoping to have the same relatively-rosy experience this time around.
ReplyDeleteObviously, I was not successful breastfeeding my twins, and I did not pump longer than 8 weeks. In many ways, it felt like my life got a lot EASIER when we just threw in the towel and went straight to formula. Bottles were certainly easier than challenging nursers, though I obviously might not have felt that way had I been able to get to a more comfortable place in nursing. Still, I do think I was a bit more well-rested than a lot of my new-twin-mom friends, since my husband could take some late-night feedings.
Interesting to see how it goes this time, with one (hopefully full-term) baby. Between having just one baby, presumably bigger and more awake, plus my own experience of having tried it once before, I'm hoping I've tipped the scales a bit more in my favor. Come March, we'll see...