I gave birth to twin boys at 34.4 weeks. I had an absolute dream pregnancy with no real concerns except for leg pain when walking in the last few weeks. I went into totally unexpected labor when my waters broke and one and a half hours my boys were delivered by c-section.

During my pregnancy I just cruised along and did not read up on any books about twins, breastfeeding, sleeping and routines - I just assumed that I would breastfeed and that I would be able to.

The first night in hospital, I was in a surgical bed and my boys were in the special care nursery. I was not really aware of much at that stage, so I got a real suprise when a staff member came in and told me she was here to express my colostrum. I hadn’t even given it a thought about feeding them; with all the drama with their early arrival it had totally slipped my mind.

The midwife had a good old squeeze and to my delight a few drops emerged which she sucked up with a syringe, from then on every 4 hours a nurse appeared to do the same and each time hey presto…a few drops.

By the next day I was really anxious to see my babies. I was taken to see them and a beautiful nurse made the suggestion that I sit with them in the nursery, so I sat in between their humidicribs, which was screened off so I could start manually expressing. So every 3-4 hours I would painfully walk to the nursery, and had all the beautiful baby emotions flood over me while I manually expressed into a specimen jar. This really helped to bring my milk in and I would urge all mums to do this if their babies are prem.

During the first 3 days, my babies they were nasal tube fed and only received 1 feed of formula and it was a tiny 8 mls each. The rest of their tiny feeds were of all my colostrums that I painstakingly collected. On day 3 my milk started coming in and I was encouraged to start to use a breast pump. So every 4 hours I would hook myself up in the mothers lounge and hope that I could fill a bottle. The staff also bought a pump into my room so I could express at night. On day 4 finally some real progress and I felt like a proud school girl when I held up my half filled bottle of Expressed breast milk (EBM) for the staff to label and put into the fridge.

By day 4 my babies were doing well enough to start having lots of skin to skin contact it was an unbelievable experience - I still tear up at the thought of it. Again it was the same nurse who initially suggested expressing while sitting with my babies that made the suggestion that I pop the stronger bub to my breast to see if he could suck, and to our delight - he did. From then on we did quite a few attempted breast feeds. The staff would help me to pop him on and while he was sucking they would also feed him via his nasal tube. We had to be careful not to wear him out too much by breastfeeding but it was exhilarating! A few days later his brother also managed to get the hang of breast feeding too. On day 6 I was discharged from hospital and there was the heart breaking drive home with an empty back seat in the car.

That night we got a call from the hospital that my supply of EBM was running low that night and if it was alright was there any way to get some more to them. So that night we settled into a very pleasant routine for the next 11 days. My husband would drop me off at the hospital in the morning he would stay for a while, do a couple of hours of work while I stayed at the hospital and learnt the art of breastfeeding my babies…and other things like baths and general care. My husband would pick me up in the afternoon, we would then go home have dinner, relax and then go back into the hospital for the final night feed and say goodnight to our boys. I was also expressing whilst in the hospital and at home every 4 hours.

I borrowed a breast pump so I had one at home, and before I knew it, my boys were finally allowed to come home. By this stage we had mastered to some degree tandem feeding and we set off home ready for the huge task in front of us.

My husband had the next 3 weeks off work and while he was home, tandem feeding was ok. It was awkward trying to position 2 babies and cope with the letdown if only one was on and the other not properly attached. Burping was also difficult and I also had the dilemma of one side producing more milk and a much quicker stream. One baby was a better feeder and he could cope with that side, where the little one would choke and gag on that side. This is where I got confused - all the pre-natal advice said to change sides and keep track of which baby and which side. Finally I remembered a conversation with one of the midwives who said that she’d had twins and she gave them one side each, so I started this as well and it worked out perfectly. The bigger one had the left and the smaller had the right side. Once my husband went back to work I realized that tandem feeding was personally too difficult for me, and that by myself I would have to have a different feeding strategy.

The hospital had gotten the boys on 4 hour feed routine and once I stopped tandem feeding I knew that I would have to change the time of feeds. I started feeding 3 hourly so that I never had screaming starving babies. I began to feed one at a time, still keeping them on the same side that was working for us. I would feed sitting on the floor cross legged while the other bub lay on the floor. I would then swap babies and feed the other while the just fed bub lay on the floor.

At 6 weeks they started to ‘wake up’ and this was when I changed our routines again. No longer was it an easy feed, burp change nappies and then have 2 hours of me time while they slept…now they were staying awake and having the odd cry.

So I kept them on a 3 hour routine but kept them an hour apart, so I was only dealing with one at a time. I would be feeding and playing with one, while his brother slept. I did live by the clock…but I was a clock watcher anyway so it suited me to a T!

At around 4.5 months I bought them back to the same time schedule and I still kept feeding whilst sitting on the floor while one lay down and watched while I fed his brother. By now they were so quick at feeding - in 15 minutes both were fed and burped!

I managed to continue breast feeding up to 8 months, I would have loved to continue and physically I could have as my supply was great, it was just that I whimped out. One of the boys had 8 teeth at 8 months and he was starting to bite me. Breastfeeding became a nerve wracking experience and I would panic every time I would see his mouth come at me to latch on, so I weaned them onto formula.

During the 8 months I did try and offer them the odd bottle of EBM just in case I was called away and some one had to feed them. They never really took to it. At 5 months they were both still waking every 3-4 hours for a feed at night so I started giving them a bottle of formula just at night to see if it would help them sleep longer, but it didn’t so we stopped trying after a few weeks. At 6 months we ended up at a mother and baby unit (sleep school) to help with the night time issues, It did help but they still insisted on waking for feeds. Finally at 8 months on the first day of being 100% weaned onto formula they slept through and continued to do so.

It was a frustrating first 8 months with the sleep issues. I had really easy days, as they fed and slept like clockwork - both were fairly settled during the day and even though I was exhausted I could keep up the day to day happenings. At night time they still insisted on the same day routines and one also developed reflux and this gave me headaches for several months till we sorted him out. Of course during the day the reflux was never a problem…only at night time!

Over all I would say that I was extremely lucky with my first year as a twin mum…yes I was exhausted during the day, but my days were very calm and organised. The nights were also calm, but I never got the chance to properly re-charge my batteries.

At the hospital I was also lucky in the fact that the staff all just assumed that I would be breastfeeding and they never once suggested the bottle feeding option. I also had some great starting advice with how to get my supply going and also I was blessed with a good supply, a relaxed attitude and no breast problems like mastitis or cracked nipples.

I hope that some of what I have written may give an expecting mum the confidence to just go and do it without doubting her abilities. I think some mums just talk themselves out of being able to do it.

I know of some mums who stress about how much their babies are getting and to be honest I never thought about how much each of them were getting each feed, I was guided by my MCHN visits and the weight they both stacked on.