welcome spring

no one should guilt you into breastfeeding, there is already enough guilt associated with motherhood as it is. But if you do want to breastfeed and are having a hard time getting started here are a couple thing that helped me......

1. Talk to a lactation consultant. She may not be able to slove the problem but she will be able to elimnate possible problems and give you some solutions for getting started.
2. I pumped all the time, usually 4-6 hours a day.
3. I used nipple shields for a while. They helped the babies to latch on, but they made it harder for the babies to get as much milk. As soon as the babies did a better job of latching on I stopped using them.
4. I feed the babies on schedule, when they were wide awake, after taking a nap. If I waited until the babies were tired or extreamly hungry then they would not even try to breastfeed.
5. When I was worn out I gave myself a free pass to not even try to make the babies breastfeed. At night I just bottle feed the babies and them pumped. When I was stressed did the same.
6. Even after the babies were finally breastfeeding I kept them on one bottle a day, right before they went to sleep at night. This ensured that the babies got a full meal before they went to sleep and it helped the babies maintain the ability to bottle feed.
7. 
   

if maya were a french man....

she might look something like this:

crying over spilled milk

A couple of weeks ago while I was taking frozen baby food out of the freezer to get lunch ready for the little ones, I spotted the grocery bag filled with frozen breast milk down at the bottom of the freezer. I took the bag out and looked at the dates on the bags of breastmilk...they were all almost 6 months old. I decided it was finally time to use it or lose it, so I defrosted a bag and used it in the babies food throughout the day. In the evening when we were getting the babies ready for bed and I was making their "top-off" bottles that they get every night before bed, I tried to pour what was left from the frozen storage bag into the bottles, and it poured all over the counter top. I probably only lost a couple ounces of milk, and I quickly cleaned up the mess and continued to put the babies to bed.

If this had happened more than 6 months or so ago, I probably would have cried for at least an hour. I worked so hard for each drop of milk I gave my babies, and I never seemed to have enough. Breastmilk was gold. My life revolved around trying unsuccessfully to get the babies to breastfeed (at least 10-15 minutes each), giving them bottles (at least 30 minutes), and then pumping milk (at least 30 minutes), starting the process again every three hours. I kept a chart of how long I pumped and how much I was producing. This was cross referenced against the amount the babies were eating and how many wet diapers they had in a day. Although I pumped all I could (sometimes more than 5 hours a day), I never had quite enough. During those first couple of weeks, my friend Heather, who's baby was just two weeks older than Max and Maya, brought over some of her extra milk for us. I was grateful for every drop, but I still had to supplement with formula. Of course, I was making food for two babies while recovering from major surgery, but I still felt horrible about not being able to make enough milk for the babies. I also felt guilty, rejected, and depressed that I was not able to breastfeed.

Breastfeeding did not come as naturally as I thought it would. It was a long hard process to finally get to a stage where we all were comfortable with it. I know many women decide against breastfeeding for various reasons, many of which I understand much better now than before I first started trying to breastfeed. Still, I am personally glad I continued to fight for it.

Thankfully after more than three months of pumping and trying unsuccessfully to get the babies to breastfeed, they finally gave in to my pleadings and started to occasionally latch on for direct feedings. For a couple weeks, I still doubted their ability and worried that at the next feeding I would need to bottle feed them pumped milk again. So after every breastfeeding session, I would dutifully return to the breast pump to try and produce some milk, just in case they needed it the next time. This was the first time I ever had excess milk, and I actually started building up some freezer storage. I stored up about 60 oz of precious breastmilk.

By four months old, I decided to stop pumping all together. The babies had to get their food directly from the source. We stopped all bottles except for one at the end of the day, just before bed time. Thankfully, they went along with the program. Maybe they were finally strong enough to breastfeed. Maybe, like Emily said, I finally forced them to breastfeed, or maybe they just gave in to my constant pleading. Whatever the reason, they finally became breastfeeding babies. They are now ten months old and breastfeeding pros. I love the time I spend feeding and snuggling with each of my babies. We will probably keep going for a while after all that work to get them going...I am not in a rush to have it be over.

Last week, I took the last of that frozen breastmilk (about 40 ounces) out of the freezer and gave it to a friend of a friend who was struggling to produce enough milk for her baby. It was nice to be able to share it with someone who understands how hard I worked for it. It amazes me to think that something I had fought so hard for when the babies were small now comes so easily.

increased security measures

Since Max has started reveling in his increased mobility we decided it was time to implement some increased security measures. Our entire second floor opens up to the entry way at the top of the stairs and the banisters had me worried. The babies are still pretty small and I didn't want them to get any ideas about squeezing through the rails so I used my moby wrap.

The top of our stairs required even more creativity. The stairs are wider than most of the gates we found and the banisters aren't parallel.

happy st patty's

Happy St. Patrick's Day from our little leprechauns!


I actually wasn't even thinking about St. Patrick's day when I got the babies dressed this morning. I was just excited to dress my little red-heads in their cute new green outfits. We went to the grocery store this afternoon and lots of people smiled and said hello the the babies and wished them a happy St. Patrick's day. I guess that is what you can expect when you are two red-heads wearing green.

fourth photo

I haven't been very good at responding to tags but this one is easy. My friend Melissa, who is also the mother of boy/girl twins (who are 8 years old) tagged me. All I had to do was post the Fourth photo from the fourth file on my computer. I'm on our laptop, that doesn't have as many photos other than the babies....which are the most fun photos to see.

This is a photo of Lonnie with both the babies in carriers while watching General Conference last October. The kids had fun being carried around like this, but it took both Lonnie and I to get them arranged and once they were in it was pretty much impossible to sit down, so we never did it again. Now that they babies are bigger, and much heavier, it would be even harder.

I tag....all of those who's tags I never responded to (I really had good intentions, but never got around to it), anyone who needs something easy to post today, and any one who has a top secret fourth photo file just waiting to be revealed.

messy eaters

Our babies love to eat and they love to make a mess while they eat. The messier the better.

rainy days

After weeks of beautiful weather we had a week of rain. The babies missed going to the park and playing on the swings, but they liked looking out the window and watching the rain fall.

adventures

We had some big adventures last Saturday. Lonnie's brother Lee and his wife Lisa were in Austin for a couple of days. We met up with them at the Texas Ski Ranch. Lonnie and Lee had a great time wakeboarding. Later, we did some exploring around Austin, including a short little hike to enjoy the view at the top of Mt. Bonnell. The babies did amazingly well, especially considering the fact that they spent about 6 hours in the car, ate in two restaurants, hardly napped, and stayed up past their normal bed time. We had a great time spending the day with family.

Unfortunately, we forgot the SIM card for our camera, and the battery on the camcorder was dead. So we do not have any visual highlights to mark the occasion.