The next thing to master: double nursing. My meaning of double nursing, for the many who ask: having one baby on each side, nursing at the same time, for approx 10–15 minutes. Never changing sides. One breast’s nursing is their meal for that specific time.
Chief will swear to this day that I finally started double nursing because Angelina Jolie came out and said that she was. Her twins were born within a week of ours. Well, perhaps Chief is right. Also, I knew since we finally mastered the latch issue, never gave them a bottle, they never had formula, I thought I can do double. I wish you all could have seen my face and Chief’s the first time we double nursed. High fives, doin’ the happy dance all around our little house. It worked like a charm the very first time! It was extremely emotional for me for them to double nurse with such ease. I am sure one could imagine how the tears rolled down my face. They were about one month old.
There are no words to describe how one can handle getting set-up to nurse with two. Two to nurse, two to burp, trying to carry one off to bed, while the other is awake or asleep waiting for his/her turn to be carried to bed. Finally getting one to sleep, and keeping the other from crying in the other twin’s ear. It is extremely hard. The vision of a Mrs. Stretch Armstrong should pop in your head. (While drafting this post, I was nursing the twins for the last nursing of the day before going to bed. One of them fell off the couch while sound asleep.) One cannot imagine how hard it is to situate one without waking the other up. Getting one to bed, without having the other one roll off the bed, chair, or couch. I feel as if I should have a doctorate in nursing or at least a t-shirt saying, “I can nurse and juggle two babies at one time. What can you do?” Basically, what I am saying is that you just have to find your groove. For some, it’s the bed; for me, it is our deep seated couch with many, many pillows. Obviously, nothing will be a perfect set up. Especially when you are by yourself with no one around to help. It will be hard.
