nursing, expressing, supplementing

One week and one day into being a mom to twin late preterm babies and an almkst 3 year old.
Adi is doing great being a big sister and helper. Her clumsiness and inattentiveness can be a problem. She stumblesand falls too close to the twins, or leaps before she looks onto the couch or my lap.
My feel good hormones have a shelf life of 8-10 hours. So by late afternoon I begin to really struggle. I get sharp headaches, I'm tired, and of course I cry for no reason. This is tough.
That was all just the prologue for this post.

Everyday nursing is different. One day they will both be champions, and the next they only half eat and fuss like crazy. Today was fine until my energy/hormones dipped in the afternoon. Then the first time the don't nurse well, sip on a bottle of breast milk, but don't adequately fill their tummies, then want to nurse again but only to pacify themselves, etc etc. And since I don't have four arms, I'm trying to feed one, and the other is squirming and crying. Yes Mike is home with methis week, but unless things are going horriblywrong, I'm trying to figure out a way to manage feeding times. I've got a handle on dealing with Adiduring feeding times, but juggling the twins is tough.

My routine right now looks like this: every three hours I wake up one twin, change their diaper to help wake them up, start nursing, which lasts betwee 5 and 15 minutes, the kiddo passes out, but isn't full, I get a bottle ofexpressed breast milk, feed them some more, burm them, then repeat the process with the other twin. Once that cycle is done, I pump. I pump to help up my supply and to see how much they ate. Each kid gets one side, they just fit better on each side in that certain hold.

Once ecerything is done I have an hour and a half to two hours before it all starts again. Keep in mind I still have Adeline to keep track of, daiky household duties, and eating. Mike bought me a pack of ensure shakes to eat when I don't have time to make a meal.

This is going to be a trying first few weeks as a twin mom. I'm glad that I have a good husband who encourages me, because I'm sure I'd drown if he wasn't here.