Newborn nursing log

When you get home, you might want to log your babies' feedings. When you're feeding twins, it's tough to remember who you fed and how well they did. We had to report this information to the pediatrician daily for a while; we found it helpful and continued with it.  I was nursing; if you're feeding with formula you'd have different column headings.

Pictured is my log. Across the top is the goal as given to me by the pediatrician -- "Feedings -- Want 8 - 12 each day each child."  Yikes.

The columns are: Day/Date; Approximate Time (of day); Which Child?; Which Side?; # Minutes; Comments.

For the record, ideally you want to nurse both babies at the same time. I didn't have a lot of luck initially with this, so my feedings were one after the other.

Later I was able to nurse the babies together, which of course was wonderful and a great time-saver. I also learned after the fact some things about how I might/could have tandem nursed earlier. I'll share this in another blog entry.

Our babies were having some trouble with gaining weight (a visiting nurse came in every few days to weigh them), so we were told to supplement with formula. Toward the bottom third of my log, you may see (in my scratchy little writing) things like "1/4 oz." or "1/2 oz." That was when we started supplementing, and how much the baby took. It wasn't long before my log said "+1/8 oz. supp., not too thrilled w/it." They figured out pretty quickly what was yummy and what was...not so yummy, and they were growing fine.

We learned at the hospital that babies can drink from little cups, like the kinds that come with medicine bottles. Cradle the baby in one arm, tuck a cloth under his/her chin, hold the little cup to his/her mouth, and upend the cup slowly. The advantage to this is you don't have to worry about nipple confusion at all. This is how the babies got their supplemental feedings. I didn't do them; my husband or someone else would, often my dad. Nursing the babies had to be my job, and it was a big one; I wasn't going to voluntarily take on supplemental feedings.

By the way, in case you're looking at the log and getting nervous, this all gets easier. Babies nurse faster, they learn to latch and suck better, you can learn to tandem nurse, and they need less feedings after a while. You can do this.