One twin is a lazy nurser

My twins are 10 months old. DS is 20 lbs, DD is 17 lbs. We're doing baby-led weaning and both eat lots of solids during the day at daycare in addition to 3, 4oz bottles of EBM.

Nighttime lately has been terrible. DS has been waking anywhere from 30 mins to 2 hours. DD is much better, but I suspect its because she's a better nurser!

I pump for the twins during the day, and at night they get assigned a side to nurse from. DD always pulls more from me, and in so doing, triggers her side to produce more. I know this based on my pumping output the next day. (DD's side always produces 2x as much as DS's at first pumping, then levels out as the day goes on).

DS just seems to be getting lazy.. he doesn't work very hard at nursing and falls asleep pretty quickly. The falling asleep is great, except he's up several times at night to nurse more because he's hungry. Last night, DD was sleeping great, so I put DS on her side for one of his feedings (mostly to help relieve me). He didn't have to work as hard on her side because it was full, and slept great afterwards.

Is it possible to re-train him to be a better nurser? Or is this an early stage of weaning? These are my first babies, so I don't know what to think. I just suspect that if he ate more before he falls asleep nights would improve significantly!

 

Do they only nurse always on the same side? Maybe it would be better for him to switch more often, rotating which side they nurse from. Sometimes one breast produces less milk than the other so it could be he's just getting less, so waking hungry. But it could be that he is just a little too tired. Maybe nurse him a half hour earlier, in a place that he'll be more alert and awake? How does he seem to do during the day, or does he only nurse at night? Also, massaging that breast, like you were trying to express milk into his mouth while he's nursing can really help him get more without working too hard. That's not easy to do while you're only half awake and up for the 8th time, of course. But if you really did that some at the first nursing of the night, maybe he'd get more and sleep a little better. I had to do that a lot with Sabrina, she just was so tiny and didn't have the strength at first, and then was never a very efficient nurser (and she's still tiny and it takes her FOREVER to eat a meal). With Spencer I did it the first month or so and then he beefed up and figured it out just fine.

And while babies do nurse less the more solids they eat, I haven't heard of too many babies self-weaning that early.

 

They switch sides every night, and DD's side is always the one that produces more. During the day on weekdays they're at daycare, so they take bottles. No problems there. On weekends I nurse on demand and half the time he'll pass out during daytime feedings, no matter how much noise there is.

Thanks for the suggestions. We usually wait until they're both pretty tired before we start our bedtime routine, so I'll try to move up the feeding a bit. I'll also try the massage if he still passes out quickly. It's just weird because he used to be such a great nurser.

 

So, my thought on why your son's side has less milk in the morning is a little bit different - my guess is that he's draining you quite effectively with all those mini-nursing sessions at night, leading to less stored milk in the morning. Which makes me think that he's not using the nursing to eat, but to soothe himself to sleep. He now "needs" the breast to fall, and stay, asleep. Have you tried other soothing methods for night wakings before offering the breast? I mean, there's really nothing wrong with him eating so frequently if it's the best way for all of you to get some sleep, but if it's not working for you, than you'll need to change up the routine. One option would be to send your partner in to deal with the night wakings as he won't have such a strong connection to milk for your little guy. He may have more success soothing him back to sleep with other methods.

Anyway, I agree with Dielle that it's very unlikely he's self-weaning at this age.

 

We've attempted to calm him without nursing. When I send in DH, DS will start screaming, arching his back and kicking his legs as soon as he's picked up. We've learned that the arching means he wants to be laying down. DH takes him out of the nursery (so not to wake DD) and brings him into our room. Sometimes, if its late enough and I'm not in the room, DS will fall asleep on our bed. Other times he'll just keep screaming until he's fed.

I've tried the same thing myself in the middle of the night, just trying to rock him and shush him back to sleep. Again, if he's tired enough it will put him back to sleep, but he just wakes up shortly after crying to eat. I'm not a fan of CIO, so trying to look for other ways to keep him happy and asleep.

 

Women almost ALWAYS have 1 side that produces much more than the other. I know when I was nursing my own twins I would tandem and then Id have to move the baby who ate on my left breast over to my right to finish their feed when thier sibling was done. I could pump 2x the amount I could on my "good" breast than my "bad" breast. Rather than "assign a side" for the night. I think you should alternate every feeding. Both babies could get nice full tummies and longer stretches that way. You're experiment the other night seems to support the theory. Try switching each baby every feed for a night or two and see if you notice a difference...