Can You Feed Three Babies At Once?

While you are pregnant, you find yourselves daydreaming of the day when you will get to hold your baby and rock him or her and feed them…When you are pregnant with more than one baby, you find yourself wondering how this is all going to work.

As it turns out, there really isn’t too much out there on exactly how to achieve this seemingly impossible task. It would seem that the people who really know aren’t admitting to how exactly they do this. I can understand why, too. All the doctors tell you not to prop the bottle during every well baby exam, and the NICU nurses all have people who are there to specifically help with feedings. So the big question arises, how is it done?

While in the hospital, my husband and I would make sure and make every possible feeding of our trio that was humanly possible with regards to our twelve year old son and his school schedule. I would get up each day and make the early feeding, run have lunch, then come back for the babies lunch feeding. Then I would hold them each in turn and love on them and tell them stories of what we had been doing when we weren’t with them until it was time for their tea-time feeding.

I would insist on the nurses NOT helping me with these feedings so that they babies would get used to taking turns when it was feeding time. That way I could learn which was the hungriest and which ones could wait a bit before eating. They would be spoiled for dinner when my husband, son and I would all be there to feed and hold them before lock-out time occurred(bath time and shift change where they would have a few hours sans parents to do whatever was needed uninterrupted.)

This practice did help establish more patience in my trio. But there were times when it was impossible to stick to my own rules. I had learned from one of my nurses who also had triplets, that she had these pillows that had bib type necks on them that would allow you to stick a bottle on the pillow and secure it with a bit of elastic sewn across the bottom of the pillow and you fastened that whole contraption around the babies necks while they sat in their bouncy seats. These pillows can be purchased at Burlington Coat Factory baby department for about $12 + tax and although they do offer a multiples discount if you buy three of the same item, you do have to demand it at checkout and it does get expensive. I opted not to buy these because of cost and our reflux issues.

There are also some that look like hair scrunchies with beanbag type stuff in the bottom to make a sort of pillow-the bottle goes through the middle and the pillow part supports the bottle resting on your child’s chest while they eat. Mine had reflux so this wasn’t an option for us.

I quickly found out that the boys had this intense rivalry between them and sometimes as very young babies they demanded to be fed at the same time which can be done. You just lay them on the bed side by side and support their heads with a blanket or with your leg, whichever is easier for you and the kids. Then since you have two hands you can hold a bottle for each baby while they eat. I have seen some moms of twins who can burp their babies at the same time but I am not that sort of mom. I have always had a fear of dropping my squirmy baby!

What happens when all three are demanding food at the same time? Do you let one cry it out while the other two get to eat blissfully? Nope, there is a way to feed all three. This worked when they were very young and tiny(keep in mind mine were extra small being six weeks early and stayed that way for awhile.)

I sat in the middle of my bed with each of the babies. Arrange two of them right in front of you while you sit cross-legged. Place them where one baby’s head is right in front of one knee and the other is laid directly opposite with its head next to his sibling’s feet. Place the remaining baby in your lap, supporting its head with your knee a bit raised.

You will have to first place the bottle in the mouth of the baby in your lap, supporting the end of it with your chest (yes it can be done, you must lean into this a little to get the right angle.) This should leave your other two hands free to hold the bottles for the other two babies all at the same time(your arms will be crossed and if you cannot support the third bottle with your chest, you may be able to support it with one of your arms that should be at the right level for just such a task!) I know it sounds bizarre and a little acrobatic, but it worked for me many a time.

You can also use boppy pillows covered with a blanket to support the babies while you hold their bottles if you can’t get them to your bedroom for a feeding. But I never could find a way to feed that third baby when they were propped in their boppy’s.

Now, my triplets are eating finger foods and last staged baby food and don’t require any balancing act to feed them their bottles. In fact, they are mostly on sippy cups save for that very first and very last feeding of the day. The bottles are really very nearly phased out. We have three little feeding chairs that can either be tethered to a chair at the dinner table or arranged on the floor in a half circle so that the kids can interact over dinner(this also allows them to share when no-one is looking!) They are almost ready for a happy meal-in fact my twelve year old has suggested a trip to McDonalds to try and land us a set of the Shrek triplet toys and introduce the triplets to the wonderful world of ketchup. Oh boy, where has the time gone?