Whats Up With the Walsh's: The first two weeks- The Feeding Frenzy

June 7, 2012

I cannot believe the girls have been with us for two weeks now! I’m absolutely amazed. I must admit that these last two weeks have been somewhat of a blur for us. But when I look back at where we started, I realize we have made HUGE strides in these two weeks. In fact, I really wanted to update after one week, but such is the life with twins, I’ve had no time.

When the girls were first born, I was given the opportunity to begin breastfeeding in the recovery room. I was so happy when Bria latched on right away. I thought for sure that was the start of our breastfeeding relationship. When I was moved to my “real” room, I tried to nurse Nova. She also latched right on but didn’t do any sucking. We continued to offer the breast to the girls and sometimes they would latch and other times they wouldn’t. But one thing was a constant, we never had any sucking or swallowing. Our nurses explained that preterm babies haven’t had the chance inside the womb to learn how to suck or swallow. We would now be charged with that task. We continued to try at the breast and see if they would get it… When we hit the 6 hour mark, I asked for a pump and I began my new relationship with the dreaded pump. I began pumping each breast for 20 minutes every 2-3 hours. It was tedious work to produce a whopping 1-2cc of colostrum. After I had the colostrum we would divide it in two. We sucked it up into a syringe and we began to syringe feed the girls. This was the most exhaustive and tedius thing I’ve ever had to do. We would put the syringe near their mouth to see if they would suck… nothing. We would squirt a little colostrum into their mouth to see if they would swallow… nothing. How do you teach a 36 week preemie how to swallow? I was so confused and was beginning to feel so defeated. We continued to try and with no luck. The girls were weighed and both had lost significant amounts of weight. Nova had lost 8% and Bria had already lost 12%. There was no time to mess around anymore. We had to add formula into the equation. As much as I really did NOT want to go down the formula road with the girls, I didn’t want to starve them either. I was so worried that this decision would be the end of our breastfeeding dreams.

25 minutes worth of pumping just to get this

Soon enough, the pediatrician that was on call, showed up for a visit. Luckily, he had a lot of experience and showed us how to properly teach them how to learn to suck and swallow. Once you fill your syringe, you place your pinky inside the girls mouth and massage their tongue down (they both have a habit of keeping their tongues at the roof of their mouths, which makes it impossible for them to swallow). After you get the tongue down, you put the syringe in the mouth and begin to massage the roof of their mouth with your pinky. This causes the suck reflex to start. And sure enough, it worked. Whenever they would suck, we would squirt a little milk from the syringe into their mouth and they would swallow! I couldn’t believe it, they were swallowing!!! Minor Victory #1.

The beginning of syringe feeding

Syringe feeding taking its toll on this momma

Nova working on the syringe

I continued to pump every 2-3 hours, every time we fed them. We would start with the colostrum and then we’d give them formula. Little by little, their weights were starting to go up! And little by little, my colostrum began to come in abundance. By day two, my milk was completely in. Not only was it in, but it was in with large quantities. And just like that formula was a thing of the past. Minor Victory #2.

WOOT WOOT, the milk is in!

Once we arrived home, we continued with the syringe feeding for the first 2 nights. It would take us just shy of 2 hours to feed both girls this way and then I had to pump afterwards. So, we would get an hour break and we’d have to do it all over again. After those 2 nights, we realized we’d never be able to keep that up and we needed to switch the girls to bottles. We made the switch and it cut the feed time in half! Minor Victory # 3.

Double bottle feeding

All during this, we continued to work on breastfeeding. Both girls have started latching and actually nursing. I wish I could say that we have some regularity to this but we don’t. The girls are still so sleepy. They are only awake for about 30 minutes of each day. They also have a hard time maintaining their body temperature. Because of this, they are burning more calories and weight loss is a concern. Luckily, we have had 2 weight checks in these two weeks and it IS going up. However, it is not going up as quickly as it should. It’s such a fine line to work on breastfeeding with babies who have weight and body temperature issues. They need to sleep. They need to be warm. In order to feed them, we need to wake them and undress them. I spoke with a lactation consultant who specializes in preterm twins and she was very encouraging. She told me not to give up. We are meeting tomorrow for her to help me with the girls. She is creating a schedule for us that will help us navigate the waters of feeding the twins with the emphasis to get them breastfeeding as close to 100% as possible. It’s been a long and hard two weeks but I’m determined to make this work. And if it doesn’t work, I’ll at least have the peace of mind to know that we did EVERYTHING in our power to try and breastfeed the girls.