This post contains affiliate links that I earn a commission through. Thank you for supporting Twins and Coffee!

Let’s start this off with the truth- I didn’t want to bottle feed my twins.

But, bottle feeding twins ended up being what I had to do.

I was hoping I would be able to exclusively breastfeed my twins from the get go. Then life took its course and I had premature babies that had to learn how to eat using bottles.

Fast forward almost two months and a lot of trial and error with feeding, I have found what works best for us. And that is bottle feeding twins.

By bottle feeding, I mean they drink their milk (both from me and the can) from bottles. I still pump so I can try and give them the best of the best. But I don’t produce enough for them to only drink my milk.

I know, I know. There are a million different way’s I could produce more milk. I have tried a few, such as taking fenugreek twice a day, drinking mothers milk tea, and eating steel cut oats. I do those things most days. However, it is more important to me to give my energy to my babies than going on a crazy power pumping routine and never sleeping.

Sleeping even less than I do now is just not an option.

Now back to bottles; because they needed to learn how to eat with bottles, I just made myself okay with it. The whole change-feed-pump-break-repeat routine is a lot to handle at first. But we have a pretty good system going now.

At first, it was taking an hour and a half to get both changed, fed and then pump. I was ready to give up and cut the pumping out completely because of how long everything took. Now I can get it all done sometimes in thirty minutes!

Here are a few reasons why bottle feeding twins is great

 

1. ANYONE can feed them. This is my absolute favorite thing about bottles. Mom’s over and you want a nap? She can feed them! Husband is home from work and you need a shower but they’re hungry? He can feed them! Everyone but you can feed them! Yay!
2. You can feed them anywhere! Sure you can nurse anywhere too, but I can hardly tandem feed at home. I don’t know how I would get both screaming babies fed at Target by just nursing. I’d much rather stick a bottle in both their mouths and eavesdrop on the people around us.
3. You can do something while you feed them. Yes, you should be the ideal mom and hold both babies and love on them while they feed. However, as a twin mom, we have to make the most of any time we get! I’m not going to lie. Most mornings, I use their first feed time to drink my coffee and fold some laundry while they’re propped up in their twin-z pillow eating.
4. You can easily track how much they eat. With nursing, you can never be sure of how much they’re getting. I think that also causes them to wake up more and seemably need ‘more milk’. That’s just a hunch I have though. But when you can consistently feed them how much you know they need, I think they do better sleeping. You can also notice easily if they suddenly are eating a lot less or eating a lot more, which could both be cause for concern.
5. You can still nurse. My babies might just be weird, but even though they exclusively bottle feed, they still love nursing. I try to nurse them once a day because I know they really do love it so much.
6. You have a solid back up for if you suddenly dry up. That actually happened to my mom. I was about six months old and she went into my room at night to nurse and she had just dried up in a matter of hours. I had never had a bottle or formula before. She said that experience was horrible and told me before I even had my twins to make sure I had bottles and formula in the house regardless of how I feed them. It is always better to be safe than sorry!
7. And last, dad has a better chance to bond with babies. Since dad can help with feedings (thank god!) he has the opportunity to love and cuddle on them a lot more than EBF babies. I know this is something my husband really appreciates.

Even if you don’t want to bottle feed your babies, I hope you can take some positives from this post if it is something that you end up having to do. I actually do really love it. I feel a lot more free because of it.

Be sure to check out my post about cleaning your bottles next!

If you have any other ‘positive’ thoughts when it comes to bottle feeding, feel free to share in the comments for everyone else!

And don’t forget to subscribe for updates on the most recent posts from T&C!