Go Rebbecca! I never thought I’d get my celeb gossip from here!

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THat’s GREAT! Also, Romijn has gotten past the hard part which for a single birth breastfeeding is 6 weeks to get coordinated and all that!
My Gramma Lizzie B’fd twins – but it was 1885 or so … I think she probably had enuf energy …etc.

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During my first pregnancy I was scared crapless that I was going to have twins because everyone told me that it would be impossible for me to nurse them! See how much bad information you can get when you’re 20 and pregnant!?

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As someone who has twins, I’d like to add that had my milk come in, I would still be breastfeeding them at 11 months. I’d guess that once they were sitting on their own so you could feed both simultaneously, breastfeeding would be infinitely easier than bottle feeding twins. I’m a stay at home mom with no outside help from 8-5 and after that, it’s hubs, me, and a four year old along with the twins. We have no other help, just us. Having two babies at once is no reason not to breastfeed. But sometimes, your body just doesn’t cooperate no matter what you do. So yes, it can be impossible.

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I think the bigger question is – why do you believe your milk never came in? Perhaps it’s something that support could have fixed. I know the Peds and nurses were all too quick to tell me that I wasn’t making enough milk, which they were terribly wrong about and thank goodness I listened to other people instead of them. They were dead wrong. My 24 lb 10 month old is certainly proof of that. But things could have turned out very differently depending on who I listened to. Perhaps a better latch or some supplements, or something else would have helped.
I know that milk doesn’t just show up sometimes. I never had any with Jonas – but I know now that’s because of all the bad “advice” I was getting (i.e. supplementing, etc) and the c-section I had. Obviously my body CAN make milk, but I didn’t know that at the time. Live and learn.

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I had acupuncture, tried both reglan and domperidone, spent hours in labs getting blood drawn to find out why I wasn’t getting milk, pumped after every feeding., weighed babies before and after feedings, took herbs to increase supply the point that 11 months later some of my clothes that were worn post-partum still smell like maple syrup,and met with every LC and LLL person in my area for help. The babies were latching fine, just like my 4 y/o had. But there was still no milk. When they continued to lose weight, we opted for a supplementer so that they were still stimulating the breast and breast-feeding while getting their formula.
Eventually, I had to give up the pumping because there is a point where spending 6 hours a day to obtain less than 3 ounces to split between two babies isn’t worth it. My breasts never engorged, I never had a sensation of let down, and it took 48 hours of no nursing or pumping to even begin to feel full. I pumped and collected 3/4 of an ounce on each side. That was when I gave it all up. My mental health was worth more than my breast milk at that point. When you spend 6 hours a day at the pump crying when you’re finished, not from any discomfort, but from the feeling that you’re letting yourself and your babies down, it’s not worth it.

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Well this is interesting. So you had milk with your 4 yo, right? So what happened the second time? Did you have a c-section? (sorry, I should probably already know but I can’t remember my own details these days, let alone any body else’s.) Was it a medicated birth? Were you separated from them after their birth?
I think it’s important to look at the possible causation, rather than just blaming our bodies for their “failure.” Something must have happened – especially if your mammary glands already worked with your older one. If we understand where it might have went wrong, we can help others try to avoid the circumstances that lead to this.
I believe that a lack of milk is a symptom of another problem – not the problem itself. So what caused the symptom? (I’m not necessarily asking you, I’m asking the universe.) In any other field of science, we don’t accept the outcome without wondering what the causation was. Yet doctors are hardly ever interested in why a woman isn’t making milk, or what they can do during birth to facilitate a good start to breastfeeding. Instead, they/we just blame our bodies.

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Oh, and I would also add that, to my original point (because I often forget what I was originally talking about to begin with) – your situation does not prove that breastfeeding twins is “impossible for some of us.” It doesn’t seem like breastfeeding twins was your problem at all, it was breastfeeding period. You sound like you didn’t have any milk for even one baby, nevermind twins. “3 ounces a day” wouldn’t have sustained one. You could have had 1 or 6 and maybe had the same outcome, so this issue is not necessarily a product of the twin-birth.
So, total-lack-of-milk issues aside, I stand by my original statement that breastfeeding twins is not impossible, with the added disclaimer that a medically proven complete lack of milk production would inhibit any breastfeeding relationship, singles, twins, or octuplets.

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No, no milk for the 4 y/o either. I’ve gone through every test possible and they can find no reason of why my mammary glands will not work. My doctors were extremely interested and only gave up trying to find some way to help when I chose to give up.

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Miya, has a reproductive endocrinologist ever done a work up for Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome or Insufficient Glandular Tissue for you? (I only ask because I have both PCOS and IGT and had almost identical issues – while many women with PCOS have no problem with milk supply, a certain number do). I’m sorry to hear you went through that – it definitely sucks!

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Yep, I have been tested for PCOS repeatedly because of my weight and after the first time with our 4 y/o they tested me for IGT and came back negative. Our first pregnancy, a year before getting pregnant with our 4 y/o we had a m/c at 20 weeks and I produced huge amounts of milk with no stimulation at all.

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