I plan to feed on demand…sort of. I’ll wait until one cries, then wake them all up in turn. That way they should stay somewhat in sync with each other. And I’ll keep a full diary, who ate how long from which teat in what order, dirty diapers, blah blah blah. Probably make their doctor sick with the details! Did you know I’ll automatically get 45 minutes for doctor’s appointments instead of the usual 15 so they will just see all of them at once? That’ll be nice.
I thought about feeding them separately instead of back-to-back, but I’ll get absolutely no sleep that way. I would rather do it that way, but waking up every hour to feed a baby 24 hours a day 7 days a week seems like a bit much to ask. It may depend in large part on whether they spend much time in NICU. If they come straight home, I may try demand feeding instead keeping them in synch. I’m just worried that I’ll become delirious after the first couple of days and try to feed the cat instead of the babies!
I tried calling some local lactation consultants, hoping to find one with experience with triplets. Unfortunately, most of the consultants here seem to have tons of experience with twins and next to none with triplets or more. I’ve talked with some other mothers of multiples and it seems perfectly possible to breastfeed triplets. I’ve gotten a lot of discouragement from my doctors, but this gives me hope. I’m certainly going to try!
Basically, I plan to tandem nurse two babies and let baby 3 nurse alone from one side, then rotate who gets which position at each feeding. I thought about having baby 3 suck from both sides, but I worry about determining exactly when to switch sides. I figure my breasts should adjust to getting sucked more at alternate feedings; it can work that way with a single baby or with twins, if one breast gets sucked harder than the other and then you switch.
As far as feeding two at once, the lady I was talking to at the hospital the other day has a video she’s going to make sure I can get a hold of that specifically goes over the mechanics of feeding two at once. Basically, you either put one baby in cradle position and put the other baby in football hold with its head on baby 1’s legs, or you put both babies in football hold. They make special support pillows too for nursing twins that I’ve looked into.