Nursing Twins- Part 3: Nursing Two Solo 

Nursing twins for me by myself was a daunting thought. 

  
I tandem nurse them because I didn’t want to deal with bottles and nursing. I’m an either/or kinda gal. I also didn’t want to spend all my time with a baby attached to me. I’m just not that mother and that’s ok. 

But there came a day when I needed to nurse by myself and still wanted to tandem feed. What did I do? I googled how to do it. I found a great blog post and video by Joanna of the Nesting Story. She had some great tips on how it can work and even how to set up your nursery. 

Here’s my process for solo tandem nursing:

• Get your nursing pillow and put it by the couch/love seat or by the area on the floor where you’re going to nurse. My gliders don’t work for this. Unfortunately, I already had one I loved in the nursery. If I did it over again, I would consider a love seat if I planned to nurse both. The reason I say consider is because I love my glider and getting to rock babies and I wouldn’t have room for both in the nursery. See my posts on What to Buy for Twins- Part 1: furniture and Nursing Twins- Part -1: The Preparation for more info about this. 

• Get a boppy or pillow to prop up each baby (if on the couch or love seat) or bouncer (if nursing on the floor) and place them within reach of where you’ll be sitting

• Put babies in/on either the bouncer or boppy/pillow to prop with

• Sit down with pillow strapped on (If on the floor, I suggest sitting somewhere where you can lean back)

• Once positioned, turn and get one baby and position them. (I use the football hold, so this works fairly well for me)

• Turn and get the other baby and position them. 

• Reposition them, if necessary. 

• When they are finished, you can burp one at a time and put them back in the boppy or bouncer. 

This works very well for me. I’ve been doing it periodically since the girls were a couple months old and they are now about 7.5 months old. Once they become more mobile, I’m not sure how well it will work. Who knows what the future will hold. 

I also want to note that I had the experience of nursing two babies before the twins, so I had an advantage. This takes some practice and patience. Please don’t put pressure on yourself if this doesn’t work for you. There are times that I’m in a position that it just doesn’t work for me. When this is the case, I either nurse them separately or do bottles. I really enjoy giving them their bottles. Their faces light up and they reach up adorably to help grab their bottles in the same way they reach for me when they nurse. 

For more info about my experiences nursing twins, check out Nursing Twins- Part 1: The Preparation and Nursing Twins- Part 2: Surviving the Early Days.

I’d love to hear how you handle nursing twins by yourself or tips on how to do it better!