I have been asked over and over by family and friends what I feed the twins, how often, and when I would start giving the twins solid food, so I thought I would do a blog about the joys of feeding twins!
The original goal as many of you know was to breastfeed exclusively for 6 months; but after 2 weeks in the NICU, Josh was still having a hard time controlling his tongue to suck properly and we made the decision that I would continue pumping until they could both breastfeed properly. We continued to supplement with premature baby formula as recommended by the doctors so that the twins would gain enough weight; but not without the hopes that we could fully make a transition off of formula as soon as possible. We made countless attempts at making this transition and around 3 months Josh was finally able to bf.
Around 4 1/2 months Josh really started watching us while we were eating and acting like he might want some. However, the twins still seemed to be getting enough to eat with just milk, so I decided to hold off on giving them solids for as long as possible. I had read that when adding solids you don’t want to lose a milk feeding and both babies were still taking in less than the doctor’s recommended (with only 5 5-6 ounce feedings a day they were averaging about 29 ounces when we do bottles and still sleeping 10-12 hours at night).
With the upcoming move, I was hoping that we could hold off on solids until getting settled in the new house (this would be around the time they would be turning six months old which was my original goal). Plus, one of my major goals after supplementing with formula for so long was to make all their baby food so that I would know exactly what they were getting.
However, about two weeks ago (while we were in Ohio), Savannah started acting like she wanted to eat our food AND waking up in the middle of the night hungry. So, in an effort to see if we could get her back sleeping through the night, we decided to go ahead and try cereal. They both struggled with the cereal and when we got to the new house last week we started with some pureed baby food. We did four days on sweet potatoes in the afternoon and are currently trying some pureed squash. Josh loves everything he has tried and is doing a great job of swallowing now. He opens his mouth wide for food and inhales everything we give him. We just can’t feed him fast enough! Savannah on the other hand still does not seem happy about eating and spits out everything we give her. We have decided to give it a break for a few days and then try again with her.
As for milk, they are now eating 6 times a day and we are waking them for a feeding right before we go to bed (around 11-12) and they are sleeping until 7-8 in the morning again. I am continuing to pump 5-6 times a day and am planning to continue to do so as long as I can.
Here are a few pictures of the twins eating:
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| First time trying cereal, yummy! |
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| “I think the spoon tastes better than this stuff” |
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| Savannah’s first taste of cereal. |
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| What she would prefer… |
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| What we would all prefer 🙂 |
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| More sweet potatoes please!!!! |
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| Get that stuff away from me! |
