Firstly, do not feel guilty about the decision to bottle feed your twins. This is probably the one time where you will not be pressured by your midwife or health visitor to breast feed.
Bottle Feeding Twins means that you do have to be slightly more organized and you will need a good supply of bottles, teats, baby formula and of course a good sterilizing system.
When your twins are newborn, you will be feeding on average 6-8 bottles per baby per day so in one day you may be making 16 feeds in total. The recommendation is that each bottle should be made fresh for each feed although this isn't really practical with twins. I soon discovered that I had to make batches of milk just to cope with the demands of my hungry twins.
I would always make 6 bottles in one go purely because that is how many bottles the sterilizer would hold. To be honest I always felt slightly nervous when there were only two feeds left in the fridge and that was my queue to make 6 more. I always made sure there were enough feeds to get us through the night. The last thing you want is to run out of feeds during the night and have to make two whilst your twins are waking the neighbors!
The other recommendation is not to heat bottles in the microwave but with extra care any responsible twin mum will opt for the microwave method. Once again you don't want to wait for two bottles to warm in a bottle warmer, jug of warm water or any other slow heating method. Your twins want feeding and they will scream until they get it!
We also kept a small fridge and a microwave upstairs in our en suite bathroom to store the night feeds. This saved us the journey downstairs in the middle of the night and allowed us to get the milk to our hungry babies promptly.
Another tip would be to purchase a spare kettle and only use it for boiling and cooling water for the milk feeds. It saves the annoyance of your cooling boiled water in the kettle being re-boiled for a cup of tea!
Bottle Feeding Twins allows someone else to help with the feeding. However, it can be tricky when you have a double feed and no help available. It is best to feed your twins at the same time if possible to keep them in a much needed routine and to save time.
A good place to carry out a double feed is by placing your twins in their car seats or chairs and sitting in between them holding a bottle in with each hand. Another way is to create pillow props on your bed and once again sit in between them holding both bottles in. It's difficult when one baby finishes their feed or stops in the middle and needs winding whilst the other is still feeding. Often I propped the bottle up with a small pillow so one baby could feed while I picked up the other.
There are items on the market available for hands free feeding which may be of some assistance when bottle feeding twins. As with all aspects of parenting twins you need to practical, flexible and creative...
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