After I had my first baby, my son and I struggled with nursing, and he wasn’t gaining weight. Before we left the hospital, the doctor recommended “triple feeding” – or nursing, pumping, and bottle feeding – each time I fed my baby.
Triple feeding is difficult and exhausting, but can lead to a successful breastfeeding relationship (whether that ends up being nursing or exclusive pumping). Here are some tips on how to make triple feeding easier.
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What is triple feeding?
As mentioned above, triple feeding means that you do three things every time you feed your baby – nurse, pump, and bottle feed.
The idea is that first, you nurse your baby as much as you can.
Then, if your baby is still hungry, you top him off with a bottle of either pumped breast milk or formula.
Finally, to make sure your supply stays even with what your baby is taking, you pump in order to remove as much milk as possible from your breasts. (You can then bottle feed whatever amount of you pump to your baby at a later feeding.)
Why would you triple feed?
Nursing moms generally end up triple feeding when their baby isn’t gaining sufficient weight via nursing.
The goal of triple feeding is to keep the baby fed, via nursing and the top up from the bottle, while continuing to work on nursing so that eventually the pumping and bottle feeding steps can stop. Or sometimes, the mom might decide to drop the nursing step and switch to exclusively pumping.
I asked my followers on Instagram whether or not they triple fed before switching to exclusively pumping or nursing:
How can you make nursing, pumping, and bottle feeding easier?
Here are some ways to make triple feeding manageable.
1. Get a hands-free pumping bra.
Since you’re going to be spending a lot of time pumping, you need to be able to do other things while you pump.
A hands-free bra or a hands-free breast pump can be life-changing! You can get stuff done on a laptop, eat dinner or even just relax a little bit while you do the pumping step.
Hands-Free Pumping Bras
2. When possible, get someone else to do the bottle feeding step.
If you have a partner or another caregiver around when you finish nursing, ask them to do the bottle feeding while you get started pumping.
This is the one step you can hand off to someone else, so don’t be afraid to do so.
3. When that’s not possible, see if you can do the bottle feeding step while you pump.
If you pump with a hands-free bra, you might be able to pump and bottle feed at the same time. Some babies need a lot of burping or to be held at a special angle due to reflux, and this might not be possible for those babies.
However, if you are able to lay your baby in your lap (or next to you on a Boppy or bouncer) and feed while you pump, this will save you 10-15 minutes each feeding session, or almost two hours total each day.
Here’s what that might look like:
4. It’s okay to skip either the nursing step or the pumping step once in awhile.
In most cases you should try to do all three steps to make sure you keep your supply up and your baby learns to nurse.
However, burnout is a real concern. If you need to take a break and skip nursing or pumping once a day to save your sanity, it will likely be okay.
5. If you’re having pain with nursing or pumping, don’t just grin and bear it – see if you can fix the issue.
Ideally, nursing and pumping should not hurt. If you’re having pain while nursing and you’re not working with a lactation consultant, it might not be a bad idea to see one if possible.
If you’re having pain while pumping, the most common issue is incorrect flange size or elastic nipples. If that’s not the issue, there are a few other things that could be causing nipple pain while pumping – here what to consider.
6. If possible, do something you enjoy while nursing/pumping.
Watch Netflix, read on your Kindle, or talk on the phone – whatever you can do to take a break.
If that’s not possible and you need to wrangle your baby while you pump, here are some tips on how to make it easier.
7. Let as much go around the house and in your life as you can.
When you are spending an hour and a half feeding your baby eight times a day, you’re going to have to drop some responsibilities.
That’s 12 hours a day, and no one who works 12 hours a day gets everything else in their lives done – they either have help, or it just doesn’t get done. Figure out what you can let go of during this short time period.
8. Remember that this isn’t forever.
Triple feeding is not sustainable over the long term. It is something that should be very temporary – a way to keep your supply up while you and your baby figure out nursing.
Hopefully, you can switch to just nursing fairly quickly, and if that doesn’t work out, either exclusively pumping or formula feeding are good options too.
How do you transition from triple feeding to nursing?
To transition from triple feeding to nursing, you’d reduce the amount that you’re topping your baby off after a nursing session until the top offs aren’t necessary. This could be gradual or abrupt – as soon as your baby is getting what he needs from nursing, you don’t need to pump and bottle feed anymore.
How do you know when he’s getting enough from nursing?
If baby is satisfied for several hours after nursing and continues to gain an appropriate amount of weight, then it’s likely that nursing is going well.
Another option, if you’re nervous, is to get a baby scale and weigh baby before and after nursing. The difference in weight is the amount he took. (Poop can complicate this, so try to weigh as soon as you’re done feeding, and don’t change baby’s clothes or anything.)
How do you transition from triple feeding to exclusive pumping?
Once you decide you want to exclusively pump, you can just drop the nursing step.
If you want, you can continue to comfort nurse if you’d like, or you can continue one triple feeding session a day to keep working at nursing.
Have you used triple feeding to feed your baby? Give us all your tips in the comments!