BREASTFEEDING TWINS: Family #2. Dr Pamela Douglas, F2F Nova Health Co. October 2023

This little twin is fussy at the breast

The experienced mother of four in the videos on this page discusses how she's managed to breastfeed her two youngest, who are twins, so far. She has explained that she is now feeling ready to wean them from the breast and begin formula feeding.

This is in part because Otis, in the grey, is very fussy with breastfeeding and there are weight gain concerns.

The lady shows me how she usually feeds, using more of a 'windscreen wiper' approach, which is the approach I typically suggest when asked. (It refers to the old-fashioned kind of windscreen wiper which operated in parallel, diagonally.)

But you can see in the two videos below how the baby in grey (Otis) on her right breast fusses and pulls off a lot, which I can see is due to breast tissue drag.

You can see this, in part, because the mother's nipple and breast rest lower than his mouth before he comes on, and drop back down lower in response to gravity when he comes off.

This is another view in portrait.

What might help this baby become more stable at the breast?

The video below is blurry but I've included it because you'll hear how I go about suggesting things that we might try to help Otis, in a way that still values all that this woman has achieved with breastfeeding. I aim to make small suggestions which don't leave her feeling in any way criticised, only valued for what she is doing with her babies, so I am not aiming for clinical perfection in this case.

In the video below, I have used a cloth to lift the landing pad of the right breast from which Otis is feeding, and we work together a little with the gestalt method.

Breastfeeding twins using the 'windscreen wiper' approach to fit and hold

It's best to breastfeed twins or multiples one at a time while breastfeeding and weight gains are being established, if at all possible. When she is ready, a woman might experiment using the 'windscreen wiper' arrangement of fit and hold.

The babies are arranged applying the gestalt method of fit and hold, in diagonal and parallel. This means that one of the babies feeds possibly in a steeper diagonal and frog-legged, down the side of the woman's body.

Acknowledgement

I acknowledge and am grateful for the great generosity of the parents from Nova Health, Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia, who courageously consented to their discussions, consultations and images being used in the Possums virtual education resources for the sake of other women and their babies, for parents and their babies and toddlers.