Giving up the pump

[apologies in advance for lots of text and few pictures in this post]
I've been thinking about the topic of breastfeeding a lot lately because of many recent and controversial news articles about the pros and cons of breastfeeding vs. formula. You can find a lot of these articles at the kellymom.com facebook page [I tried to include a link to the page but it didn't work]

The decision about how to feed your babies is a very personal one, and yet everyone seems to have an opinion about it. I had so many people say "but how are you going to breastfeed triplets?" and "but pumping takes up so much of your time" and "you won't be able to produce enough milk for them." It was really important to me to at least give breastfeeding a try, and I didn't want the fact that I had more than one baby to deter me. I want to share a little bit of our feeding journey, in hopes of letting other moms of multiples know that breastfeeding more than one baby is possible, and yet if it doesn't work, that's ok too.

I started pumping (using a Medela Symphony hospital-grade pump) within hours of delivery, and kept up the pumping routine every 3 hours around the clock. The babies were too little to nurse and couldn't latch well, so they were fed breastmilk through syringes, and then bottles. I had the babies practice nursing as much as possible, but for the first month, they really weren't that effective. I got pretty down about it at times, but their pediatrician assured me that they were likely to get the hang of it the closer they got to their actual due date (they were born at 35 weeks). So in the meantime, I just kept pumping and pumping. I felt really lucky to have had a good supply from the beginning. Lots of women really want to be able to provide enough milk for their babies and their bodies just won't cooperate.

[Let's pause to do some math. 8 pumping sessions a day times 30 days in a month = 240 pumping sessions. Each pumping session was 15-20 minutes, for a total of 4800 minutes (or 80 hours) of pumping per month (or 2.5 hours per day, if you'd rather think of it that way). The ONLY way I was able to do this was with the amazing support of my husband and family, who took care of babies while I pumped.]

And then, magically, during the week of their due date, Abby and Lucas started to nurse effectively, and they didn't always need a bottle to "top off" after nursing. Zoey still had some trouble, and so I kept pumping. Over time I gradually reduced the number of pumping sessions per day and kept up with the nursing as much as I could. We even mastered tandem nursing, which is much more efficient once you get everyone positioned correctly. I found the book Mothering Multiples to be very helpful.



We started having to supplement with formula when I went back to work. I hated it, and actually I still do. But, in order for me to supply them with all the milk they need, I would have to nurse and pump non-stop, which isn't really feasible for a busy working mom.




By late fall, it was getting harder and harder to find the time to pump. The babies were more mobile and were napping less, I was on my own with them more, I was busier at work, and I was just plain tired of pumping in the middle of the night. I had been renting the pump in 3 month increments, and it was due for renewal at the end of December. So, I decided to turn in the pump.

The day I turned in the pump was bittersweet. I loved that I wouldn't be losing hours a day to pumping, but I hated that I couldn't provide milk to Zoey anymore (she never really became a strong nurser, and stopped altogether by the fall). I'm still nursing Lucas and Abby a few times a day, and I hope that continues as long as they want and need it to.

There have been lots of sweet nursing moments. Recently, I was nursing Lucas in the evening and Casey the dog got up on the couch next to us. She laid her head on Lucas's body, and Lucas stroked her ear while he nursed. It was really precious. Jason took this picture of him taking a bottle in the same position (the camera was out of reach during the nursing; please excuse my crazy socks and slippers)



Thanks for listening, and happy feeding!

Monkeys with bananas

The babies are getting so much better at feeding themselves and are having fun with messy finger foods. We're still feeding them pureed food but are gradually adding in more and more foods that they can feed themselves. It's an exciting new stage!

Lucas vs. Cheerios


Abby demonstrating her new "aren't I cute?" head tilt


Zoey is particularly skilled at eating bananas


(bet you thought this would be a Christmas Eve post. Sorry - we decided to save all Christmas photos for tomorrow. After all, Santa hasn't even been here yet.)

Feeding time at the zoo

We are gradually giving the babies a variety of pureed foods. So far they've tried rice cereal, bananas, sweet potatoes, applesauce, and avocado. We're making all of our own food - it's so easy just to mash up the food and mix in some breastmilk to make it liquidy. We hope to find the time soon to make some big batches that we can freeze. Zoey and Abby are the most enthusiastic and skilled eaters, and they each seem to have different favorites (Zoey - applesauce; Abby - bananas). Lucas doesn't quite have the hang of how to get food off the spoon and use his tongue to swallow it, but he tries. And Zoey is the messiest, of course.

The babies enjoyed avocado. Note that Abby is the only one without a green beard. She is a very neat eater.


Unlike the hilarious sweet potatoes, Lucas is very serious about his rice cereal


Zoey was not in the mood for rice cereal the other day


Today Zoey found eating rice cereal w/banana to be extremely exhausting

Sweet Potatoes

It's funny how the babies' personalities infuse every daily activity. When we gave them sweet potatoes yesterday, they each reacted in their own unique way. (That's Jason's dad and step mom feeding them)

Lucas thought the sweet potatoes were hilarious


Zoey immediately grabbed the spoon and wanted to feed herself


Abby waved her arms like she was flying because she was so excited


***NEWS FLASH***

We interrupt this blog post to bring you breaking news: Abby rolled from back to tummy! She did it at 3am, with no witnesses. I heard her fussing in her crib and went to check on her, and there she was! She didn't really want to stay on her tummy, but it was exciting to know she could do it.




Here's a short video of Lucas laughing while eating

Babies' First Rice Cereal

In celebration of the babies' almost 5 month birthday, we decided to try rice cereal for the first time today. They were a bit perplexed, but they each seemed to swallow a little bit of it (this was proven when they spit it up later). It was probably more fun for us than it was for them.

No matter what we feed her, she's a messy eater!


You can see how Lucas felt about it


Abby ate the most


The less-than-satisfied and confused trio


Jason is learning lots of fun tricks with the video camera

Tandem Nursing

The babies and I have met another breastfeeding goal, just in time for their 2 month birthday - we are getting better at tandem (two at a time) nursing! As with many other things, conditions have to be just right for it to work. There have to be 2 hungry babies who are still reasonably happy and willing to nurse(not hysterically hungry and demanding the instant gratification of bottles), I have to have the right pillows and seating available and have time to get it set up, and the third baby has to be sleeping or otherwise taken care of. My EZ2Nurse twin nursing pillow is coming in handy, as it holds 2 babies much better than a boppy pillow. I usually put a small throw pillow under each side of the nursing pillow for extra height (I really need a nursing stool to prop my feet up on!) and sit on the couch so I have lots of room.

The main problems I've had involve the third baby - one day I was home alone and thought Zoey was sleeping peacefully while I nursed Lucas and Abby. Well, she did not stay asleep. I had to decide whether to listen to her cry, or whether to stop nursing to get her. I decided on the 2nd option, and then had to get everyone settled again. From now on I will always make sure the 3rd baby is within reach if I'm home alone and tandem feeding! My next goal is to be able to nurse 2 while bottle feeding the third. Talk about efficiency! :)

Here is a picture of Abby and Lucas passed out and happy after tandem feeding:


The other challenge when home alone is dealing with fussy babies while I'm pumping. Again, I have to decide whether to stop pumping to deal with babies, or let them fuss for a bit. I usually end up holding whichever babies are unhappy. The other day I had to hold both Zoey and Abby. Here's a picture of how they ended up sleeping once I got up from the chair:


In sleep news, some days are still better than others. The last few days the babies have fallen into a pattern of having a late night feeding (around 11pm-12am), then one middle of the night feeding (around 3am-5am) and then a breakfast feeding (around 7-8am). They have also been ready to eat closer together, rather than spreading out their wake-up times across the night. We've worked hard on making sure they all get that late night feeding around the same time so that the remaining feedings are not as staggered as they used to be - that way I can get them all fed in a 1.5-2 hour time frame instead of being up every hour. This is a big improvement over the eating every 3 hours pattern - it used to be 11pm, 2am, 5am, 8am - and I was doing the last 3 of those so Jason could get some sleep for work. I'm hoping this trend continues - it's nice to only be up for 2 hours in the middle of the night! (and you can see how I'm using my time waiting for Abby to wake up...)

Careful what you wish for...

Remember when I said I wished their feedings weren't quite so staggered in the middle of the night, so I wouldn't have to be awake as long? Well, I got my wish last night when all of them were screaming for their food at precisely the same time (4:11am). It was a bit of a circus for me to get each of their diapers changed, get re-swaddled, and get them fed. I settled them all in on boppies on the couch and sat on the coffee table in front of them. Then I fed 2 at a time while 1 waited. Usually it was poor Abby, who is laid back enough that she just waited quietly for me to put the bottle back in her mouth. The squeaky wheel gets the grease around here, and last night Zoey and Lucas were the squeakiest. (I may have to learn to hold a bottle with a foot!) I eventually got them all fed and burped and back in bed, but since it was hard to really take the time to soothe each one to sleepiness before putting them in their cribs, it was another 15 min at least before they were all quiet. The whole thing took an hour, whereas if I had fed them each one at a time it would have been an hour and a half.

I wasn't coherent enough to take a picture of them all lined up on the couch, so here are some daytime pics of cuddling on boppies:

Lucas and Abby

Lucas and Zoey

Who needs sleep?

Snug as a bug in a swaddle


Man, this sleep deprivation thing is hard! We're functioning better than we thought we could on 5-6 hours of sleep at night, but I wouldn't trust myself to pilot an airplane right now. Since coming home from the hospital the babies had been on a pretty predictable schedule involving eating every 3 hours and sleeping in between. They would just pop awake at the 3 hour mark like they had little alarm clocks. Now they are starting to be more wakeful during the day, with less napping in the mornings but still having decent afternoon naps. And now they sometimes have longer stretches of sleep & time between meals at night. Unfortunately, these longer stretches are not happening simultaneously, so they don't translate to more sleep for us. Here's an example:

Thursday night they each went 4.5 hours between meals - Zoey went from 9pm-1:30am, Abby from 10:30pm-3am, and Lucas from 11:30pm-4am. This meant that I was up to feed each of them at those times. I did steal an hour nap from 2-3am though. And yesterday Abby went a whopping 5.5 hours between meals! Unfortunately this happened from 3pm-8:30pm, so it didn't really help us much except to make the mealtimes for the others a little less hectic.

napping in the pack n'play



And why aren't they all eating at the same times, you ask? We hear over and over the importance of having them on the same schedule, and they were on the same schedule for probably the first 6 weeks. However, they seem to be gaining weight and developing at different rates, and it's affecting their sleeping and eating schedules. We want to respect their individual biological clocks while also maintaining some sanity. So we do our best to get them to eat as close together as possible, but we also follow the rule of "never wake a sleeping baby". It seems crazy to wake someone to eat after 3 hours if they have the potential to sleep for 5! Often they eat pretty close together during the day but get gradually further apart as the night goes on. We're going to keep trying to get these 4-5 hour stretches as close together as possible so that we can get longer stretches of sleep too. Of course, as long as I'm still pumping breastmilk the longest I can really go between pumpings is 4 hours (but it's a lot better to pump and go right back to bed than it is to pump and then feed 3 babies). And honestly it is much easier to do feedings one at a time rather than having 3 screaming at once. The trade-off is less sleep, however.

daddy-daughter napping


It's a little too early to do any sort of rigid sleep training program, but we've been reading 2 sleep books and will gradually start to implement some of their ideas. The books are Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Twins and 12 Hours by 12 Weeks.

We also seem to be transitioning them to sleep in their cribs at night. They had been sleeping in an Arms Reach Co-Sleeper and a bassinet in our room, but one night they were napping in the nursery and we didn't want to move them to our room for bedtime b/c we didn't want to risk waking them, so we just left them there. We slept a little better b/c we couldn't hear every little noise, and they seemed to do just fine being apart from us. Plus both Lucas and Zoey do better when they sleep upright, since they spit up and seem uncomfortable when flat on their backs. So they often sleep in a bouncer, swing, or car seat (the pediatrician said this was ok). This arrangement is easier to pull off in the nursery than our bedroom.

Lucas napping


So...we will hope for continued progress and in the meantime will daydream about 8 consecutive hours of sleep...

Our new daily routine

It's time to give everyone an update about our daily routine, since some things have changed. Jason went back to work a week ago, which has meant that I have taken over more of the night time feedings, and my mom has been here for full 8-9 hour days to help out. Here's our new schedule:

--Lisa's mom arrives at 8am just in time to help with that feeding.

--other feedings are every 3 hours, at 11, 2, 5, etc. However, over the last couple of days Zoey has decided to eat smaller meals every 2 hours, while Abby has decided to eat larger meals every 3.5 hours. Lucas is still fussy much of the time and we feed him whenever it seems like it will help his tummy. This has made our heads spin a little bit as we try to keep track of everyone. Thank goodness we are keeping track of feeding times and amounts on a log sheet!


--in between feedings we accomplish household tasks, and Lisa gets a shower and maybe a nap. Here are some pictures of mom helping with the dog and the housework:



Mom also helps with soothing fussy babies, which can be quite tiring:



--Jason arrives home from work in time for the 5pm feeding. Then he helps soothe fussy babies while we hopefully microwave some leftovers or wait for someone to bring us a meal.


--Lisa's mom is released from duty, and Jason and Lisa spend some time together in the evening.

--Lisa helps with the 8pm feeding, then goes to bed around 9pm for a few hours while Jason stays up to do the 11pm feeding on his own. Lisa would continue to sleep until the 2am feeding, except she has to get up to pump by midnight. So it's usually two 2-hour segments of sleep instead of one nice long 4-5 hour stretch.

--Lisa then does the 2am and 5am feedings on her own, with hopefully at least an hour of sleep in between them. Everything takes longer in the middle of the night, and then of course we have to add in pumping time on top of the feeding and diapering time. There are no pictures of these wee hour feedings - believe me, it's for the best. Here are some pictures of how 2 babies look on a boppy on Lisa's lap after being fed:



--Jason sleeps from midnight to 6:30-7am. Lisa is very jealous. Jason explains that it is very hard for him to be alert and concentrate at work, even with these 6-7 hour stretches of sleep. The debate about who is more tired and who has the more difficult job continues.

--and then we start over at 8am! It's encouraging that Abby is showing signs of sleeping a little longer between feedings, but since the others are not doing this yet it mostly just gives us a little breathing room so that everyone isn't screaming for their food at once.

--oh, and some days we do things like take the babies for a walk, or have a doctor's visit, or do some errands (Lisa's chance to get out of the house without babies) in between feedings. Our life is lived in 3 hour increments!

Any questions??
:)