How does a woman breastfeed twins? I’ve been doing it for nearly two months and I’m still not sure I have it completely figured out. I’m beginning to think some form of X-ray vision might help.

I did some research before my babies were born. The “expert” advice made it seem simple enough. All you have to do is nurse baby A on one side while baby B nurses on the other and then have the babies alternate sides every other feeding. I decided these experts must all have four hands.

This led me to ask the real experts. I consulted (online, as there are no moms of twins in my immediate circle) women who had successfully nursed twins. Many agreed that you needed to feed both babies at once to have time to do anything else. They assured me that you don’t need four hands. You just need about 200 pillows. One described for me her “nursing nest” of intricately arranged props. I still had doubts about making this work for me. For one thing, I’d have to buy more pillows. And for another, I had a feeling my older kids would also be using these pillows to build forts and any time saved by feeding the babies together would be lost hunting for and rebuilding my nest.

I did find a few women who admitted they never got the hang of the double feedings. Or they just couldn’t make the babies be hungry at the same time. I decided to make one of these women my mentor. But not the one who insisted that the easiest way was to assign each baby a side so you never had to think about it. It’s not in my slightly neurotic nature to not think about things. The experts had already convinced me that switching sides was necessary to keep the supply even. And I like things even. (Ask my husband about the volume knob if you want to know how much I like things to be even.)

By the time the babies arrived, I thought I had a pretty good plan. Not only did I have tips from experts and real-life moms, but I got an A in Economics back in college. This was, after all, simply a matter of supply and demand. I just didn’t realize how much demand was going to figure into the equation. For the first week, everything went smoothly. Baby G was in the hospital so I simply used the pump whenever it was his turn. I had complete control over when the pump was hungry. And then there were two babies. And that’s when I started chasing the elusive notion of even.

The double feedings don’t work. Not because I can’t do it, but because I don’t like to do it. Those are reserved for emergencies. (i.e. Simultaneous, unstoppable demand… and a splitting headache.) I usually end up offering each baby the same side for about a day and then switching them, which was my original plan. It just isn’t nearly as straightforward as I thought it would be. In my fairly feeble attempt to give each baby approximately equal time on both sides (Just approximately, I’m not nuts), I have in my head a continuously updating log of the last time each baby ate, on which side, and for how long. This is where the X-ray vision would be helpful. It would be nice if I could just see how much milk is available at any given time.

Both babies are thriving and using up more diapers than one would think possible, which is what most experts will tell you is the mark of good breastfeeding. This means I should be able to relax. It hasn’t stopped me from striving for nursing perfection, or my own vision of it. Sometimes I get confused though. Sometimes I start feeding baby G and realize five minutes in that he’s on the “wrong” side. Sometimes baby M thinks she’s still hungry after her share and I know baby G will be waking up any minute for his. Once I even got up in the middle of the night and fed baby M on the “correct” side. Then I went to put her back in the crib only to realize that I was actually holding baby G. (Oops!)

The unfortunate thing is that sometimes my memory is too good and I can actually recite many past feedings. This is too much information even for me. It’s also depressing. Do I really need to know exactly how many times I had to get out of bed last night? (7!) But the more you try to get something out of your head, the more it sticks. The answer to my initial question, it seems, is that she spends entirely too much time thinking about it. But when you spend at least 5-6 hours a day doing something, it’s pretty hard not to think about it.

Mandy, the mom of newborn twins, appears every other weekend on TriangleMom2Mom.