When the twins were born, suddenly there was monitoring of blood sugars, weights, milk intake, and other vitals in the hospital and each pediatrician visit. Although I’ve worked with infants for years at a top U.S. hospital, I am a first time mom and it has been a whirlwind.
I realized that talking to fellow dietitians who were also first time moms and who focused on adult nutrition, they had lots of questions for me about their babies’ nutrition and growth. It made me wonder how many moms out there who didn’t have the educational background in nutrition, were feeling overwhelmed. So, I’ll talk a little about my experience in the first 3 months and some general guidelines/information.
I was lucky and made it past 37 weeks with twins; this is a deadline that many twins and plenty of singletons don’t make. My twins didn’t end up needing NICU time which I am incredibly grateful for- you have no idea unless you’ve been a NICU mom- I take my hat off to you!
Baby A was 5 lb 6 oz and Baby B was 6 lb 5 oz. Then, the babies both lost a little bit of weight. Did you know this was normal? If you didn’t, I imagine that sounds scary! Infants can lose up to 10% of body weight but it shouldn’t exceed 10%, shouldn’t continue to be lost after 10 days of life, and should be regained by 2-3 weeks of life. Our babies regained their weight as expected, however, Baby A was extremely tired and wasn’t interested in feeding. Because of this, she did experience some mild hypoglycemia which meant pricking her feet (which I knew was important but I still hated my baby crying each time) and supplementing her a few times with a sugar solution.
When babies got home, Baby A continued to be very sleepy. We had to undress her and even put wet, cold cloths on her just to wake her enough to feed. It was probably a few days, maybe a week later, that she stopped behaving this way and all was well. Today, babies are doing great with their nutrition.
One thing I remember taking away from a Dr. visit was the time spent feeding: we were told that the babies should really have taken in all their nutrition within 30 minutes and if they continued to attempt feeding, it was likely just for comfort and pleasure. Now, some mommies enjoy continuing beyond 30 minutes and bonding with their baby while others may be busy (for so many reasons- no judgement zone here!) and figure that as long as baby is eating on a regular schedule, is following their growth curve, has no nutrition/growth concerns from their Dr., then 30 minutes is long enough. Honestly, with twins, I stopped after 30 minutes and it worked out perfectly fine in our case- in fact, our Dr. was concerned about low birth weights at their very first visit but at the second and third visits, showed growth slightly above expected velocity.
Everyone is different- this is purely our experience sprinkled in with a dosage of experience. My fellow FTMs (First Time Moms) seemed grateful when I explained this to them as some felt they were being a 24/7 diner and not able to get anything done.
Now, there are guidelines for how many ounces a baby should get per day and how often they should feed. Birth to 4 months is along the lines of 8 – 12 feedings per day and 2 – 6 ounces per feed (up to 32 ounces/day, generally). Guidelines are only generalities and you should always follow the advice of your personal health provider(s) because not every baby is going to need to follow those guidelines. At first, we were giving around 2 – 4 oz per feed and feeding every 1.5 hours I think (this included over night!). Once the babies were in a good weight range, we were allowed to let them sleep 4 hours over night before waking for feeds.
Ultimately, the most important indicator for if a baby is getting enough nutrition is growth- so when I knew my babies were growing well, I stopped tracking the feeds. I watched the clock, if using a bottle then I gave an amount close to what I knew they were already taking, and also monitored for signs of hunger. I’ll admit, this drove my Dr. crazy because they want all these numbers of feeds and ounces. Sorry, as a busy mom of twins- unless there was a medical need to monitor/track, I was just going to make sure they were fed and happy.
I can keep this post going for a long time so I’m going to wrap it up to where we are now. The babies, at 3 months and 1 week, started teething. This is early but not abnormal. Unfortunately, it’s no fun. They are both taking about 5-6 ounces per feed every 3 – 3.5 hours and had started sleeping from 10pm – 6 am at 2 months. They are still sleeping through the night. I credit keeping to a routine, including the bedtime routing which we started on day 1 at home, to this success (I’m a fan of https://www.babysleepsite.com/ for sleep research and advice).
The babies are following their growth curves well. Frankly, in my experience, unless a baby is extremely low on the growth chart, as long as they are following their curves well or having appropriate growth velocity, I don’t stress. Some times I worry that parents put too much into things like “5th percentile” when some times a little one is just going to be petite, but healthy, or may catch up a little later. Moms, we have so much to worry about already! Of course, if your Dr is concerned, that’s a different story – I’m talking about the generally, healthy baby.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this post and learned something. Please let me know anything else you would like me to discuss!
And for your enjoyment, babies’ first Christmas!
