Angelina says breastfeeding twins is hard
First of all, forgive me for writing yet another post about Angelina Jolie. I promise that I will only talk about her briefly. Second of all, duh. Yes. Breastfeeding is hard.
Angelina said that she had to wean her four-month-old twins Vivienne and Knox. TV Guide quoted her as saying,
“It’s very hard,” the Changeling star said on British talk show GMTV. “You look in the books and there’s this football hold and you think, ‘If anybody can do that, I can do that.’ And it’s a lot harder than it looks in the books!”
Many real people (I know she’s real, but I feel like she lives in a bizarre Hollywood fantasy world that can’t possibly actually be real) have successfully nursed twins for as long as, or longer than Angelina did. A Disney blogger wrote about the difficulty of coordinating breastfeeding:
With twins, it never felt that easy to coordinate breastfeeding, especially in public. Heck, it was often hard to coordinate it at home.
When I was pregnant and reading lots, I would often see photos of moms nursing multiples at the same time, making it look effortless. Every time I tried to do this, my kids freaked out. Dinah freaked out a few minutes into every nursing session even if I was nursing her on her own, and the post-natal doula that friends hired for me couldn’t figure out why.
But, I still nursed as much as I could, and we used formula too.
Another mother of twins wrote that breastfeeding twins was not always fun:
…breastfeeding twins is not always the idyllic bonding experience that nursing is often made out to be. When I found myself suffering from a plugged milk duct a few weeks back, I was not surprised to find out that one risk factor for the problem is simply nursing twins. For mothers who wish to breastfeed twins there are two options: tandem nursing… or nursing one at a time. Advantages to tandem nursing: significantly less of a time commitment, an important consideration since it can take 12 to 15 hours a day to nurse two infants individually. Disadvantages to tandem nursing: all three people involved are considerably less comfortable than they would be nursing individually. Three is, indeed, a crowd.
Here’s a blog written by a mother who, at the time of the post I’m quoting, had nursed her twins for a year. Again, it’s not always easy:
Breastfeeding twins is by far the most physically and emotionally demanding thing I have ever done. I should say “was” because it’s not the challenge it was early on, though new challenges always present themselves. It’s also one of the most beautiful and rewarding things I’ve ever done. I’m more proud of it than most things in my life, even though it’s something biological that the majority of women around the world do, that has been done for millennia.
I had to work really hard to get things to work, with twin, premature, low birthweight babies. I’m not even sure why it was so important to me to exclusively breastfeed early on, but I do know that I was extremely motivated to do so, fearful of failure, and willing to forgo sleep and sanity to get there.
So if you’re pregnant with twins it is possible to breastfeed successfully- even if you’re not a multimillionaire. Many real women (without a full time staff) have done it. It is hard, but if you want to breastfeed, even if you have to supplement with formula, you can make it happen. Kellymom, as always, is an excellent source for information about breastfeeding multiples.
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November 19th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
I wish more people would consider the supplementing. It’s not all or nothing, you can breastfeed even just once a day and still share enormous benefits with your child.
I know it’s none of my business, but it did make me sad to think she weaned her twins at 3 or 4 months. With all that household help she couldn’t even take time to spend one session a day with each of them? Stepping off high horse now…
November 20th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Breastfeeding twins is hard. When my twins were born, I felt I had the success of breastfeeding my first child under my belt and there would be no worries. I had no idea how much more tired I would be or that one of my twins would have difficulty latching or that no matter what I did that I would not be able to get them on at the same time until they were nearly three months old and only with a special pillow.
I dealt with cracked and bleeding nipples, a husband who cheerily showed off a formula can to me nightly for the first two weeks, an evil bout of thrush, going back to work full-time, the hassle that is pumping, low supply, a plugged duct, a serious bite, milk blebs (what are those really?), and mastitis. Whew! Despite all that, it wasn’t the horror story it sounds like. It was amazing!
My twins nursed for three and a half years and never had formula. We gave away the can my husband liked to a food pantry. The thing that most helped me in this endeavor was La Leche League. Free help available 24/7 from mothers who have breastfed is almost too wonderful for words. I would encourage all mothers of multiples to seek out someone or a group of someone’s who have successfully breastfed their babies for at least a year and start asking questions while pregnant. Feeling like they don’t have any help and they don’t know what to do when something goes wrong is the most common reason that other mothers tell me that they quit breastfeeding. Help is out there and you CAN do it!!!
November 27th, 2008 at 10:48 am
So many moms do not even attempt to nurse their twins. While I do know a few moms who did so successfully, most don’t. So I think Angelina deserves applause. 3 months of nursing is better than none.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:19 am
It’s great when someone can brag about nursing their twins for 3-1/2 years and overcome all the obstacles that come with BF. But some of use do have other children that require our attention. Besides my 3 months old twin girls I am a mother of 3 adopted boys too and not to mention I have to work full time. So to be fair to Ms. Jolie, I can relate about finding the need to weaned my girls off from BF at 3 months. Only difference between me and Ms. Jolie is that she is very wealthy and can spend more time with her children if she really wanted too! Don’t get me wrong, I think BF is beautiful and I do love it but sometime we have to make the hard decisions and some sacrifices for the benefit of the whole family, because let’s not forget that to have a strong family bond, we must have time for everyone. So those of you with other children like me find yourself a mother of twins, don’t feel guilty at all if you are not able to nurse your twins for a very long time. I say nurse when you can, pump when you can and when the milk is gone, then it’s, don’t feel at all guilty about it because at least you can say that you were able to nurse your twins even if it was just a month or two. What’s important is that they are healthy and happy . . .you’re happy and the rest of the family is happy too.