Attachment Parenting Twins ... Is It Really Possible?

Ceridwen

Welcome back to the Postpartum Prep Podcast. My name is Ceridwen, I'm your podcast host, and today I'm joined by Alaina for a conversation all about twins. And I'm just going to tell you a little bit about Alaina because I think her whole philosophy is so interesting around twins, and I'm super excited to have her here today.

So Alaina is the mother and voice behind Nurturing Twins, a community supporting and resourcing twin mothers to prioritize attachment with their babies. She is a passionate advocate for the mother-baby triad and guides mothers through mindset shifts, education on the intersection between neuroscience and nurture, and has pioneered the first nurture-guided sleep program specifically for families of multiples. I'm so excited to have her here today sharing all things twins with us.

Welcome, Alaina. Thank you for being here.

Alaina

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited.

Ceridwen

I'm so excited too, and I feel like this is such a long time coming. I've been following you for so long and I feel like we've had like a little back and forth, but it's so nice to actually finally get to chat with you in person or over Zoom. Before we kind of get into everything to do with your philosophy around twins, I would love to actually start with your journey and just hear a little bit about what got you into this work.

Alaina

Yeah. Well, as a first-time mother, I found out at nine weeks that I was having twin girls. I didn't know they were girls yet then, in my spirit I did, but logistically not quite.

But I had a really intense initiation into motherhood, right? Both between the incredible weight, both physically and spiritually, all the things of having two babies and having to find a way to reconcile the vision I already had for myself as a mother with what everyone and everything around me was telling me now that I was having two babies, not just one. Because, see, I had envisioned myself as, oh, I'm going to be baby-wearing all the time, exclusively breastfeeding, going to have my baby in my bed.

You know, all of these things are just going to easily unfold. And maybe if they're not easy, it will come so naturally to me just because the mother-baby is meant to be together. And so this is just going to be simple, even if it's challenging, it's going to be simple.

And then there was another baby, there were two babies. And so immediately I did what every millennial would do, which is scour the internet trying to find examples of mothers who were cloth-diapering twins, who were breastfeeding twins exclusively, who were home-birthing or having a natural birth, all of these things that felt so incredibly important to me. And I was kind of coming up dry.

It was, there was like a blog from like 2008, and then all of the mainstream things that just shouted, you know, bottles, strict schedule, you know, you're going to be in the NICU, this, that, all the things. And it felt so overwhelming for me. And so I really just kind of had to lean into my intuition and grow in my capacity and in my resourcing throughout pregnancy and then through birth and postpartum to find and create the experience that I wanted to have and that I knew was needed for myself and my daughters.

And sort of once I felt like I was far enough on the other side to be able to speak from experience and to be able to support others through it, I started nurturing twins.

Ceridwen

Yeah. And that's your, when you started nurturing twins, was it just an Instagram account or was it your whole?

Alaina

Yeah. That was literally all I did initially was just, I had the idea, you know, there really needs to be like a space for, cause I, over the course of, you know, my daughters, I guess they were probably about like 16 months or so when I started my Instagram account, I had already connected with, you know, twin mothers who were living similarly to myself, who had similar values. But there was no like central hub or anything I could even point other mothers to if we were having conversations about things.

And so that was when I decided to create my Instagram account, nurturing twins, and started super humble, just sharing my own experience. And over time have been able to build a really strong tight knit community, both on Instagram. And now we've kind of expanded into the nurturing twins village, which is like an off social media, connective community space where we host events and have discussions and everything.

So yeah, it's just been really incredible to see how much has changed really just in the span of a year.

Ceridwen

Yeah. I've been watching like your journey over the past year or so. And like, I think it's just so exciting to see where you started and now everything that you're building and that you're sharing and that you're holding a space for as well.

And I love also kind of seeing you've done like some collaborative posts with where twin moms kind of submit and it's amazing. I think it sounds just hearing where you started in your own journey, where it was like, you really had no resources for you and what in the kind of what you were looking for. And definitely no community around that.

And like the difference between that kind of lonely experience to this now community and how important that really is. I think it's just, it's so amazing that you've created that. And I'm so excited to chat with you more about your specific philosophy, I guess, when it comes to raising twins.

So I think the first place to start when we're talking about it is this term you use, the mother-baby triad. Now we talk for anyone who's like familiar with my brand is mother-baby well-being, the same mother-baby as one word. And it's the same with the mother-baby triad as one word, but I typically refer to it as the mother-baby dyad.

And maybe you can explain when we say mother-baby triad, kind of what we're talking about here.

Alaina

Yeah, I fell in love with the language of the mother-baby dyad when I discovered it. And I felt like finally, as I had been mothering from a place of really prioritizing attachment and connection with my daughters, that that gave language to the truth that my body had already shown me just through our connection. But it felt lacking because I was like, oh, this mother-baby dyad and this mother-baby dyad, like this doesn't make sense.

And I noticed that, you know, people talk about the magic and the mystery of the twin bond. And that is so potent. And the mother-baby relationship is so potent.

And the incredible thing with twins is the fact that all of these exist not in, you know, in silos from one another, but in tandem, truly. And so I coined the term the mother-baby triad because I didn't see it anywhere. And frankly, I felt, yeah, that profound absence of the language.

And in breastfeeding and in so many different areas, representation is so vital to giving people a place at the table, right? And for twin mothers who are already experiencing more fragmentation in the mother-baby relationship, truly just because of the nature of the cascade of interventions that we deal with from, I would argue from the moment that we find out that we're having two babies. I always joke with, there's a few moms in my community who had surprise twins at birth and yeah.

And I joke with them that like they got the luckiest straw of all of us because as soon as you find out you're having twins, your experience can be very quickly co-opted and medicalized and outsourced. And the cascade of interventions terminology is utilized typically only in regards to birth interventions. But I would argue that for twin mothers, that those interventions span far before and far beyond just birth.

So the importance of the mother-baby triad, it gives us the language and the ability to get the right perspective when we are approaching that relationship. And it really fundamentally changes the way that we navigate it. It fundamentally shifts us from managing our babies into like true relationship, delighting in them, confiding in them, connecting with them, allowing there to be this responsive dance of attunement.

I was just listening to a talk from Dr. Rocio Zunini talking about Dr. Mary Ainsworth's work with regard to attunement. And the word attunement is used a lot in like high nurture parenting circles. It's about tuning in and so creating harmony.

And I love the musical terminology because I come from a musical family, but I love the idea of us harmonizing with our babies and being able to, instead of trying to perhaps shift their melody to come into harmony with them, like create that space for our relationship to blossom into what it's meant to be. And I think a lot of moms of twins feel like their focus has to become surviving and facilitating their twins' relationship. And it goes much deeper than that.

So I'm delighted and privileged to be able to speak about this. And the fact that it's resonated with so many twin moms, I know that there's something deeper here that I've, you know, had the fortune of tapping into.

Ceridwen

Thank you for sharing that. And I think I hear how, you know, it started off as for you, kind of, you wanted this, like a high nurture parenting experience was always important to you, but it was always conceptualized in the mother-baby dyad rather than what you felt to be true was the mother-baby triad, whereas really the three of you are all kind of attuning to each other, maybe?

Alaina

Yeah, I think too. I think it can be really common for the mindset of scarcity to sneak in when the mother-baby dyad is now a triad, right? Because we're thinking about how am I going to feed two babies?

How am I going to respond to two babies? There's only one of me. There's simply not enough attention, enough arms, enough whatever.

And the fundamental shift that it really took for me to move into a better place in my motherhood and that I've been able to guide and support so many other mothers through is this abundance. It's not just the mother-baby dyad. You have this abundance.

You are already evidence of a miracle. You're living abundance. You grew.

You birthed. You are raising two babies, not one. That's incredible.

That is something people dream about. I know a lot of people roll their eyes when people say, oh, you have your hands full or I always wished for twins. A lot of twin moms will be like, I would never.

And I'm like, this is such a huge blessing. It is an incredible gift that we have. And it's also evidence.

I am a very science-y minded person. I know I talk a lot of philosophy, but very scientifically minded. And you have the evidence, the hard evidence right in front of you that you are capable because you've already done so much.

You have already made it through every single hard day. Pregnancy for me was incredibly challenging. I had hyperemesis gravidarium.

So I was sick my entire pregnancy, um, reliant on pharmaceutical medications, IV fluids. I was like having to force feed myself around the clock just to be able to gain the weight that I needed to, to be able to support my daughters and myself through pregnancy. And, um, I survived that, you know, I think, I think a lot of moms don't give themselves enough credit for all of the hard things that we do.

And our, you know, our completion rate is always a hundred percent because no matter how hard of a day you have, the next day is always a new day.

Ceridwen

Yeah. It's always, always coming around and you've always completed the day before. Yeah.

Um, and I love this abundance mindset shifting from kind of, yeah, feeling like there's one of me and now there's two babies actually like, yeah, but you are the one that created those two babies and you have that capacity.

Alaina

Um, and motherhood is always about expansion of capacity, right? Like it doesn't matter whether you have one baby or two, but, um, you know, I, I didn't have the same capacity at one month postpartum that I had at five months postpartum that I had at 22 months, you know, like we are constantly stretching our muscles, expanding our capacity, learning, trying new things. And we have to give ourselves grace in that, but yeah, approaching it from that place of abundance that I have in me what I need for this and that I'm capable.

I've already carried these babies. I I've been entrusted with them. There's a purpose to this.

Ceridwen

Yeah. I think that's so true. Um, something I wanted to circle back to was you had touched on how the mother-baby triad kind of helped you in navigating some of the maybe more traditional ways that people tend to talk about raising twins, um, that are perhaps not as aligned with the high nurture style of parenting that you were going for.

Um, can you explain a little bit, what are some of the common, I don't know if you'd say like misconceptions or ideas around how you must raise twin babies, um, and how, how you navigated that and what you maybe found to be true or not true for you.

Alaina

Yeah. I, um, I would say the mainstream approach to parenting twins is more so about finding the way to sink and overlap and set schedules to manage. Um, and I understand just logistically the mindset behind that.

Right. Um, but your babies are not a business. Your job is not to manage your babies.

It's to be present with them, to be in relationship. And so generating this understanding of the mother-baby triad helped me to align my values with my practices and to decide and discern through the lens of the mother-baby triad, what was going to serve us and what was not. And something that I tell moms all the time is that, um, no one member of the mother-baby triad, like there's nothing that is good for one member that is going to be harmful for another.

And so that lens helps me to make decisions and support myself and my children through, you know, our experiences. And, um, so like for, in regards to like birth, you know, I made the decisions that I made for birth through the lens of what was going to be the most supportive for all of us. And then when things didn't go to plan, um, I kept that mindset to guide us through different decisions and to still bring that awareness and that dignity to my children and to myself through our experiences, um, navigating the hospital and the NICU.

Um, and then with regards to feeding, um, the mainstream perspective tends to be with twins. You can try to breastfeed. Most likely you need to combo feed.

You'll eventually be formula feeding exclusively. It's good for your mental health. That's the best thing for your mental health.

Um, what I wish mothers understood, especially through the lens of the mother-baby triad is that it is mutually beneficial. Um, like one of your previous podcast episode guests, Claire Fagan said, um, mutually nourishing to have this relationship and to support ourselves together. And breastfeeding is so, so, so incredibly nutritive on a neurological level, um, on an emotional level, I would argue on a spiritual level.

Um, so building that and protecting that relationship for me was non-negotiable. So when we experienced challenges with feeding and we had, um, you know, issues arise where I was needing to pump in order to feed my daughters, or we had to accept some donor milk, like we were still able to make the necessary pivots, motherhood, twin motherhood, particularly, I feel like you just have to have this flexibility, but being flexible, being pliable, being able to move through it with the right perspective, instead of the alternative being the either have no expectations or be super duper type A about everything and just, you know, schedule out your day. And, um, a lot of the, the, the approaches that we get with multiples, like the, the core of it, the root of it is not inherently bad.

Like saying you need to have extra sets of hands. You need people around. I agree with that.

I think it's incredibly important for any new mother, but especially a mother of twins to have people around who are supportive and helpful and can, you know, hold a baby if you need them to, or wash the dishes or whatever. Um, but in the mainstream twin philosophy, it tends to be more so of like, you need to be having a night nanny come in and handle all of the nights. And that's what you're going to be doing in order to survive.

Or if you have friends or family who are going to help around, you need to be having them feed bottles because, you know, it's just too much work for you. If you're the sole provider of their nourishment, whereas like the reality is, is the other people around, they can do everything else, right? Like their job is to support the mother so that the mother can support the babies.

And so what that looked like in my life was, um, my mom and my mother-in-law literally coming on the days where my husband wasn't able to be around and were literally helping me prop babies up so that I could learn how to tandem feed, you know, like that's actually being the village. How sad would it be if they were saying, I'm only going to help if, um, you pump and I can bottle feed them for you instead of helping me to preserve the integrity of our mother-baby triad, because again, mutually nourishing, supportive for my mental health for that of my daughters and really, really protective of our bond and has given us so much more ease and, um, yeah, just like fluidity in our, our days.

Like I, I can't imagine having a set, oh, they've been awake for 45 minutes, so I must put them to bed now. And if they will not sleep in the bassinet, then they have to sleep in the crib. And if they won't do that, then it's not a real nap.

You know, like I see so many moms get caught in these traps that have been imposed by, you know, corporations and maybe some well-meaning people, but I do think that the core of it is really, maybe I'm a bit of a conspiracy theorist. I don't know. I think that society benefits from the integrity of the mother-baby dyad or triad, but that the, I'm not saying this well, I think that mega corporations and capitalism at its core is not compatible with the mother-baby.

Absolutely. Really focuses on trying to diffuse that.

Ceridwen

Because so much of like the mother-baby dyad or triad is like a lot of wellbeing comes when actually you aren't kind of influenced by like, oh, you need to buy this thing and this thing. And you actually focus on like what, or you just allow what, what happens through the triad to nourish you and you don't really need much else. Obviously it's, obviously there's a whole other conversation about like the support that's, that also goes into supporting, but it's all about like, you kind of gave a great example.

It's about supporting the mother-baby dyad or triad together rather than kind of separating them and calling that support. Yeah. And, but that kind of, that real support, again, that's not something that like any corporation can really offer.

And yeah, obviously capitalism. I don't know how you would feel, but you kind of mentioned a little bit about your breastfeeding journey and how kind of, would you be willing to go a little deeper into that? How you kind of started and how it developed for you?

Alaina

Yeah. So I, um, I don't love sharing my birth story because I feel like it might scare some people, but it's, it's relevant because, um, I wouldn't be who I am or where I am as a high nurture parent if I hadn't navigated the experiences that I navigated. So I planned a home with my daughters.

I developed help syndrome, which is like preeclampsia times 12, basically. Um, my body just couldn't continue to sustain pregnancy at that point. And, um, so I had made it to 37 and three and, um, made the decision with my husband to go into the hospital.

Um, cause I knew that my body was not well. And so, um, I had my first daughter, I've medicated vaginally, um, after, I guess, uh, like 11 hours of labor, um, and pushed for two hours on the dot, two hours on the dot. And she came out, um, and then 33 minutes later, um, my second daughter was born via emergency C-section, um, due to the help syndrome, my body just couldn't keep laboring.

So, um, right from the get go, I mean, when we made that decision, um, I told the doctor, this is my worst nightmare. And she said, I know, I'm so sorry. And we did what had to be done in order to protect my life and that of my daughter.

And for that, I'm grateful, you know, hospital exists for these reasons. Right. Um, I had an incredibly difficult, you know, didn't have my golden hour, you know, instead I'm like shaking on a table, um, having an allergic reaction to the spinal, um, so when we were reunited, thankfully my husband was with the doc, with my girls, um, in the recovery room.

And so when I was brought to them, you know, he was holding them already getting some good skin to skin. Um, and I was able to latch them for the first time with his support. And, um, they were, like I said, they were born at 37 and three.

So that would be considered full term for twins, but it still is early term. Um, so they were doing their very best to suckle. And one of them has been a pro from literally day one, like got it.

She was perfect. So good at it. My other daughter needed a little bit more support.

And so, um, she was lethargic at the breast and, you know, I had many lactation consultants coming in like every other hour to help me because everyone's like, Oh, this, this lady had twins in two different ways. And this is crazy. And so, you know, people just kept coming in and, um, some of them were helpful and some of them, their advice conflicted with each other.

So it was a little bit confusing.

Ceridwen

Um, Can I just pause just to, for anyone listening, we did an episode recently with a mindful mama mentor. Um, I can't remember what the episode was called, but we talked all about like navigating conflicting feeding advice in that episode. So just to point anyone back to that episode, if they want to kind of talk or learn more about how to navigate that.

Sorry, please continue. That's good.

Alaina

Um, yeah. So I ended up, um, attempting initially to tandem feed and then just because of them being so little, just deciding to prioritize, trying to get each of them a really good latch on their own. And so I was alternating breasts, every feed, um, really just kind of trying to help them to be able to, um, you know, have a good latch, but also to bring my milk in because I lost a lot of blood.

I had a really, you know, traumatic end of pregnancy and birth, obviously it was a lot on my body, um, had to have blood transfusions and things like that. So it was just a lot. Um, so I was getting some colostrum, but, um, I did request donor milk in the hospital and because of my daughter's, their size and, um, you know, gestational age, we were able to receive donor milk, thankfully.

Otherwise I would have been texting some of my mom friends to get some into the hospital. Um, but yeah, after, um, their second day of life, we were rushed emergency to the NICU, um, due to some complications with one of my daughters. Um, she was sick and, um, I'm sorry, I need a moment to process.

Um, so that was the worst night of my life, understandably.

And, uh, we you know, I was pushed to a big medela hospital grade pump and told to get to work because now I can't latch my babies and they have to be here. And you have to keep them safe and there's too many wires, you can't pick them up. It's not reasonable to think about breastfeeding right now.

We can give them donor milk for another week, but after that, it's all up to you. And so, you know, my nipples were still bleeding from just having trying to latch two brand new little babies, um, you know, with some degree of oral restriction just because of their age again and the circumstances of their births. Um, so I thankfully had you know, lactation support in the hospital and I had nipple balm and I had silverettes and I had my mom and my mother-in-law who both had experience with breastfeeding, um, but not really at all with pumping.

And so, this was what I was thrust into and now I was exclusively pumping for, I didn't know how long it was going to be. Thankfully, one of my daughters was discharged, um, when we were discharged at the end of that week. And so, I was able to bring her back to the breast pretty much within a matter of a few days.

Um, but my other daughter, um, my life is a little bit of a disaster. We got COVID from the hospital. So, we were not able to go back to her after, um, we left the hospital.

We got sick and we couldn't go back.

Ceridwen

Oh my gosh.

Alaina

So, talk about a first postpartum, right?

Ceridwen

And also, can we just highlight the fact you were recovering not only from a vaginal delivery and also a C-section. Like, who is recovering? I mean, I'm sorry, that is a lot that you were going through.

Alaina

Yeah, it was a lot.

Ceridwen

I have goosebumps like that. Oh my, yeah.

Alaina

Yeah. Um, again, I don't want to scare anyone with my story, but I can't not share authentically, right? So, um, I was breastfeeding one daughter exclusively and, um, pumping for the other and having my dad and my father-in-law, um, bring the milk to the hospital because we weren't allowed to go.

Um, and so she was gaining well and she was, you know, getting her ounces in and everything like that. And so, um, when she was able to be discharged and we were well again, we were all able to be reunited after 15 days apart.

Ceridwen

Oh, wow.

Alaina

Um, and...

Ceridwen

What was that like?

Alaina

Truly, I cannot express to you, um, I talk about the language of the mother-baby triad was something that I gained really because it was something that my body knew. I felt like I left, like, my internal organs at the hospital when I had to leave and she was there.

Ceridwen

Mm-hmm.

Alaina

And when I, you know, had one baby with me and not another. And I had some people in my life saying, oh, this is, like, you get to, like, practice, like, what it would be like to have one baby and I just wanted to die because I was like, how could you say such a thing?

Ceridwen

No.

Alaina

Um, so when we were reunited, I was just like, A, I experienced, um, DMR, so dysphoric milk ejection response, um, from pumping. For anyone... Yes, go ahead.

Ceridwen

Anyone who, like, doesn't, maybe anyone who's pregnant who's never heard of that before, can you just explain what that means?

Alaina

Yes. So, um, there can be a sensation in your body when you experience a letdown that really I don't know how else to describe it other than...

Ceridwen

Can we also explain what a letdown means?

Alaina

Yes. When your body builds up enough milk that it's going to release milk to your baby, that's called a letdown. And, um, typically with that, I can't remember exactly what hormone is implicated in it, maybe dopamine.

Um, I believe...

Ceridwen

Oxytocin is a big one.

Alaina

Oxytocin is a big one, yes, but I believe that there's a pretty big dopamine drop in the experience of dysphoric milk ejection response. And so, the language that people use to describe it is, um, something along the lines of homesickness. You just...

I felt tremendously ill and sad every time I would have a release of my milk when my milk had come in. And only with pumping. I do believe that there is absolutely a link between the trauma that I experienced and that being tied to pumping.

And so when my daughter came home...

Ceridwen

So when... Sorry, when you were feeding out the breast, you didn't experience that same feeling?

Alaina

No, I did not. It was really exclusively with pumping. And, you know, obviously there was a profound sense of loss I was experiencing, but even outside of those circumstances, like for like a month or so after they came home, I occasionally would, like, pump if I, like, had an appointment or something, and every time without fail I would have that experience.

And so I was like, well, this is clearly not, you know, I'm not going to be one of those moms who's building a freezer stash because this feels really sickening for me. And, um, I, I mean, I went into birth and everything with the expectation that, um, you know, I'm going to be the pacifier, we're not going to use pacifiers. Of course, in the NICU, they give pacifiers because they simply are trying to help the babies to, you know, cope with separation as best as possible.

So when she came home, pacifiers went in the trash, um, the hospital bottles all went in the trash, you know, I was given a nipple shield and suggested that I use it because she had been exclusively bottle fed for, you know, pretty much the entirety of her first two weeks of life with the exception of the first two days. Um, and I just said we're going to figure it out. And so I chose, um, to use the nipple shield once.

Um, it's like a little thing that you put over your breast that, um, it's like a plastic, sort of silicone-y, I guess, um, allows the baby to have an easier latch. It's more similar to latching to a bottle. Um, but I knew that so much of our experience had already been robbed from us and that this was not about me, but this was about rebuilding the trust and the security between my daughters and myself.

And so I put all those things away, threw the pump into the closet, and just focused on being as present and connected with my babies as possible. And so the twin bassinet sat in the corner and became a fantastic laundry hamper.

Ceridwen

Oh, yeah.

Alaina

Good place to throw dirty diapers, all of the things. Um, the crib ended up having a similar function for us as well. And um, my husband and I learned to safely chest sleep with one of them on each of our chests.

And, um, I would tandem feed them pretty much from the moment that they got home onwards. I was almost always tandem feeding unless, like, you know, just one baby needed to eat. But my goal was, um, that they would not be not touching me if I could help it.

And I really, really believe that prioritizing nurture was the medicine that got me through not developing severe PTSD or postpartum anxiety or depression or even postpartum psychosis. As I know so many mothers who have navigated similar NICU journeys who have had wildly different experiences from me. Pardon.

Ceridwen

Um, I just want to, while you take a sip of water there, I just wanted to pop in and say, uh, just about chest sleeping. We have an episode where we talk about chest sleeping because obviously there are, like, safety guidelines involved. Um, so I'll just be sure to link that in the show notes for anyone that's interested.

Um, and learning more about chest sleeping. But please go ahead and...

Alaina

Yeah. Yeah, so I, um, I truly believe that nurture is medicine for mothers. And that is why...

Ceridwen

Sorry, the call, like...

Alaina

...my husband.

Ceridwen

Can you hear me? Yeah, you just came back. The call kind of came off there.

I think you were saying nurture is medicine, and then it kind of cut off.

Alaina

Yeah. Yeah. I truly believe that nurture is medicine for mothers and babies.

Um, it can be preventative medicine or it can be, you know, true medicine, retroactive, like treating, being a ball for, you know, the ruptures that occur. Whether you have a textbook delivery or not, whether you have, even just navigating, you know, bringing a child or two into the world, um, with society having expectations and having, um, just not the true village and support that you deserve, there will be ruptures and there will be challenges that you will endure. Let nurture be your medicine.

Let your baby, rather than being a problem for you to solve, let yourself be a person for you to delight in. A person who is reflecting back all of the good and all of the hopes and dreams that you've ever had. They are so pure and so innocent and so truly good.

And when we lean into that, instead of trying to control them or track them, you know, tracking diapers, tracking bottles, tracking feeds, checking all the things. It's so insidious. We can just let that go.

And like you said earlier, it doesn't take a lot of outside things. You just have to flow in the rhythm of your relationship. And your mother-baby relationship is not necessarily going to look like mine.

The choices that you make within your family are yours. But I want you to be supported and grounded in doing that. And doing that from a place of congruence between you and your babies.

And not doing it from a place of performing for anyone. Anyone other than just being really rooted and secure in your relationship.

Ceridwen

Wow. I love everything that you just said. I just wanted to make sure that we kind of held space fully for your story because I know that was really big for you to share.

And thank you so much for your vulnerability. So it sounds like kind of when your daughter came home from the hospital, you and your two daughters and your husband, you spent a lot of time doing skin to skin. And how did breastfeeding and kind of your relationship, it sounds like obviously that nurture really was the medicine.

Yeah. How did everything kind of develop from there? Were you able to continue breastfeeding?

Did you end up kind of would you mind telling us kind of what happened for you?

Alaina

I think I only ever used like two bottles ever since I came home from the NICU. One when I had my six week checkup and one when I went to physical therapy for my pelvic floor because I needed it. Other than that I just chose to prioritize ecological breastfeeding.

So breastfeeding responsibly, paying attention to my daughter's cues and supporting them through body work and chiropractic as needed. We were doing a lot of that really to support my daughter who had been in the NICU for a longer duration of time to help her with her palate and to help her just with releasing the tension that she had in her body from all of the things that she had endured. So that was incredibly supportive for us and like I said ecological breastfeeding.

So really just paying attention to any single time that anything was going on. I was like you probably need a boob and I would just pop her on with both of them. And that it's so funny you go from being at a point where every single time you're like counting the minutes and you're like oh my goodness can I handle this any longer?

I don't know because it can be incredibly overwhelming. It can be really really hard. I have had a very successful breastfeeding journey.

My daughters are 30 months, 32 months and they're still breastfeeding pretty much whenever they need to which is fantastic. But it was not an easy journey. I made those choices to feed them responsibly and feed them whenever they needed to but we still had issues with our latches.

We still had cluster feeding is such an intense experience as a new mom because I knew I was grounded in biological reality which was the fact that milk production is a you know call and response. Like if you offer the breast frequently and if you allow your babies to empty you then you will fill more and you will meet their needs. I knew that and when they would cluster feed I would feel the sensation of oh my breasts don't feel as full as they did earlier and what if they're crying right now.

What is this crying? Am I not enough? Am I not feeding them enough?

Should I supplement? I had all of these questions running through me and I think so many first time moms do or even just first time moms to twins but being grounded and rooted in the knowing of yes my body was meant to do this. My body is capable of doing this.

Building that support like I said that I needed which was ensuring that I was being adequately fed and that I had plenty to drink that we had the external support that we needed when we needed it so when they were cluster feeding I would either have my husband if he was home or before he would leave home he would put together just a big lunch box full of all the snacks he could possibly think of that I would want to eat and he would fill my big water bottle and set it on the couch next to me with my breastfeeding pillow so that when that time rolled around I had what I needed so that I could just sit there and be like I said earlier in the episode my mom and my mother-in-law would alternate the days that they would come and they would always sort of time it so that when we were going through cluster feeding they would time their visits so that food was being made food was being brought to me what needed to be done was being done babies were being held if I needed to quickly run to the bathroom and then we could get back to it so yeah I think just having the proper support I could have been much more supportive certainly but having understanding what I needed and getting those needs met was crucial to me being able to meet their needs because I knew I can and I will meet their needs but I need the support in order for me to do that not from an empty cup.

Ceridwen

Absolutely yeah I think if there's anything that we really want to drive home to or that I always am constantly trying to drive home to pregnant moms is the importance of support and I wanted to slightly transition into a slightly different topic but I thought a good transition point might be you mentioned ecological breastfeeding that's not a term that I've heard before can you tell me about that?

Alaina

yeah oh goodness what is her name? Elena the lady who wrote Hunt Gather Parent and she oh

Ceridwen

I can't think of her name off the top of my head but I will make sure to link her in the show notes

Alaina

yes she discusses that as the way that mothers ancestrally fed in that when it comes to just having adequate supply for babies and the way that babies prefer to eat they prefer to snack right they prefer to have a little bit and then you know move around experience life do what they need to do and then have more because breastfeeding is not just about nutrition but it's also about checking in it's about connection it's about support regulation pain management all of these things sleep support of course so I chose to in order to be able to build an adequate supply especially when I knew that one of my daughters had some more challenges with being able to transfer milk the same way that her sister was my goal was just to anytime that there could be a need for nursing I would fill that need and so I never had a like oh it's been two hours time to feed the babies it was more so of okay just anytime that they could possibly need it and sometimes that looked like they were nursing every 15 minutes sometimes it was like there's never not a baby on my body sometimes it was a longer stretch of like 45 sometimes it was two and a half hours you know like it really can vary but the goal is to be responsive in your care to clue in and the cool thing about our brains too as mothers is in this postpartum period in your pregnancy as well your brain is more malleable in certain areas that help you to become more responsive so it's like you get out what you put in the more responsive you are as a parent the more you are cluing in to your baby's signals the easier it is for your brain to identify those signals to find those patterns and to do it more quickly so that there is less there's less crying there's less tension there's less stress about am I doing this the right way? Am I responding to my baby the way that they need me to because you're literally in synchrony you're building that synchrony by your relationship and your responsivity and so breastfeeding is not at all different from that it's just part of it and I found that doing that helped me to once we got through you know I'd say the first 12 weeks were the hardest for me with breastfeeding and I tell every new twin mom I'm like if you can make it through the first 12 weeks I truly believe you can breastfeed for as long as it serves your mother baby triad and for some people that is four months fantastic for some people that is 48 months incredible like I love and support every mother who breastfeeds their babies and I want you to know that you can do it for as long as it is supportive for your family and yeah it doesn't have to be scary or feel impossible just because what we see is so focused on you know utilizing external supports they're not necessary intrinsically like you can do it but it will take a different approach than the mainstream approach so instead of thinking about babies eating on a schedule that a formula fed baby would eat on you have to do it in that responsive way so that your baby is getting adequate nutrition and adequate connection

Ceridwen

I wanted to just mention as well the importance of like having a good IBCLC or like a lactation consultant on hand if you need any like extra support like I'm sure it sounds like you kind of had seen maybe some IBCLC's

Alaina

yeah I connected with funnily enough she was a twin mom and a twin we connected at the hospital and I ended up following up with her and meeting with her a few times after going home just to get that additional level of support but yeah I always say like do as I say not as I do because I didn't you know meet with a lactation professional prior to having my babies I was like my body was meant to do this it's gonna do it and like I'm a really stubborn hard headed person so I didn't but like please please set yourself up for more success like work with lactation professionals like from the get go

Ceridwen

I think I was just thinking because a lot of the things you were just I don't know if you know that I'm a lactation counsellor so a lot of the things that you were yeah a lot of the things that you were describing are very similar to things that any breastfeeding mom regardless of one baby or two or three like things to do with trusting in like the process of milk production and you know cluster feeding and I think those things are so and you know you even brought up breastfeeding is completely different way of feeding your baby from formula feeding but our society we have like the mindset that what is normal for formula feeding is normal for breastfeeding when that's just not true and I guess this is these are all sorts of like all sorts of myths can kind of come in when it comes to breastfeeding and that can accidentally derail a breastfeeding journey if you don't know what you don't know and I think that's where for me like a lactation consultant can be like really helpful even just for reassurance like you know in those moments where you're wondering you know my breast feel really empty like is this normal a lactation consultant can come in and explain that process of milk production and just offer that reassurance I wanted to ask you about the ecological breastfeeding because you mentioned earlier about how common it is for twin moms to hear a lot of advice about really straight schedules and I think it's really interesting because obviously ecological breastfeeding is not at all about schedules it's about responsiveness and I wanted to also kind of bring this in to the topic of sleep because I know you have a program all about sleeping with twins and so I was wondering if we could just spend a little more time exploring what sleep looks like with twins and I guess a little bit around like maybe what daily life might look like if you're not I mean my understanding is that your approach is not about straight schedules when it comes to sleep so I was curious could you tell us a little bit about that and like what maybe advice you'd have for like expecting moms of multiples

Alaina

yes well oh my goodness so many good things to dig into I would say I said it earlier and I'll say it again and I'll probably say it until the day I die that motherhood requires so much flexibility and so my goal through my work and through supporting other mothers is really just to offer you the resourcing that you need so that you can take what serves you in this current season because it's going to shift it's going to shift like the way that I was feeding my babies when they were newborns and we're having to you know learn I'm still ecologically breastfeeding I would say I very rarely unless like there's truly a reason not to I very rarely refuse a feed and they'll be three at the end of summer so it's like you know the requests are not as high as they were obviously when they were little right the need is not quite as high but the responsivity is still there sleep is the same way I believe that they're I believe that co-sleeping so co-sleeping the proper definition of it is a shared sleep area so room sharing and co-sleeping are synonymous terms co-sleeping is usually utilized to share about some form of bed sharing whether that is having a crib that is side card so the side is removed and it's brought up right alongside the bed or sharing the bed surface entirely with your infants or having some sort of a hybrid situation with maybe one to two cribs in the room a twin bassinet a variety there's a lot of options and I love helping parents to find what options might serve them for them and their babies and just to see how it evolves over time it's been really cool to support families and see you know early we liked putting my girls in the same crib together for sleeps that were not like contact naps because generally speaking I pretty much for the majority of the first year if they were not contact napping it was like in the stroller or in the car

Ceridwen

can we just pause and explain what we mean by contact napping for any pregnant moms who might not know what we mean

Alaina

so contact napping is napping that is on a caregiver so you could be baby wearing or you could be laying in the bed with the baby or you could be sat on the couch or on a chair with a good book but essentially it is that you've got a baby skin to skin on you for their sleep and some sleep resources try to tell you that those naps don't count I'm here to tell you that all sleep counts that's crazy and contact naps are doing so much good going back to the idea of mutual nourishment and serving your mother baby it's so supportive of your relationship the same way that you are getting that oxytocin flow when you're breastfeeding you're getting that when you have a baby on your chest and it's funny because it hits really hard in the fourth trimester when your babies are brand new to the point where I remember even like grandmas or my husband would have a baby on their chest and would like the oxytocin hit would be so hard they would like start to nod off and fall asleep with the baby because it just felt so good but it's designed to be that way it is so good for you so I am a staunch advocate for contact napping I love helping other mothers learn how to baby wear your twins from the get go so that you can do contact naps and still live life

Ceridwen

can I just add something in there I think when it comes to especially in my work with pregnant moms I often find it's like the way we present contact naps sometimes it sounds like it's just like a choice like oh you could put your baby in the bassinet or you could hold them and you know I just choose to hold my baby when in reality often people end up contact napping because that's what their baby pretty much demands yeah and I just wanted to highlight we have an episode that I did I think you know Gabrielle from Nurture Mom so I did an episode with her which is all about why babies want to sleep close to their mother’s, that episode, I'll make sure to link it. Sorry. 

Alaina

No, absolutely.

There are so many temperament and sensory needs that can play a role in baby's sleep. It's so normal for babies to need movement and proximity in order to be able to rest. If you think about it, they've been in your belly with you moving and having them close to you and having that direct contact for their entire gestation.

And we are carry mammals. That is literally the way that we are designed to exo gestate. So externally gestate for at minimum the, the first nine months out of the womb, just as they were in the womb.

So, um, yeah, learning how to sleep your baby on your body safely is such an incredible resource. And it's something that I found incredibly lacking for twins. As I said earlier in the episode, my husband and I, um, would individually chest sleep with one baby each, um, for sleep when they were young, like I would say probably the first few months, um, for nighttime sleep.

And then from there, I just had to figure out a way to be able to safely bed share with both of them. Um, because I, again, was responsibly breastfeeding overnight and was not loving the whole, let me just get up and pick up this baby over here and get my pillow and set myself against the wall and, you know, the nod forward and destroy my neck and, you know, potentially put my babies in danger because of the position that we were in. So I had to figure out a better way.

And I'm always transparent with people. I tried a lot of things and a lot of them were not things that I would recommend other mothers to do. Um, but that was kind of what put a fire underneath to understand what the research was already saying, what, you know, if there were researchers who were looking at how you could safely co-bed twins.

So having twins in their own safe sleep space together or bed share with them, what that could look like, what different sleep arrangements could look like. And so as I gathered that information and, you know, kind of tucked it away for myself, as I began sharing my journey online and trying to support other mothers, um, I saw a true need for a comprehensive sleep resource. And initially I led a, um, a cohort program, made a whole course about it because I was just thinking there's so much nuance.

There's so much nuance. I need to understand your family situation, your temperaments, your, um, even just your risk factors. Cause every family's risk factors for co-sleeping are different, right?

Um, your comfort level, what your space looks like, what size bed do you have? What sort of budget do you have? If you need to change things, you know what I mean?

I thought there were so many factors. And so I built a whole course and was able to lead a live cohort through it, um, over a six week span, which was so incredibly powerful. And I still felt the profound sense that I was missing the mark because there were all these other mothers who were approaching me who were saying, I can't necessarily do a whole, you know, immersive experience, but I still need support.

I still need resources. And so I consolidated the information that I had put in that course and I made a book, Sleeping with Twins, the guide. And, um, it's been really incredible.

I shared that in January and I've since helped over a hundred families with that resource specifically. Um, yeah, basically.

Ceridwen

Can you give us like an overview of just, you know, like the highlights of kind of what is included in the guide? Yeah.

Alaina

Yeah. So the foundation of it is explaining infant neurobiology and how sleep works for babies, because I feel like the typical approach with, um, twins in general and with, um, just sleep resources usually is this is your wake windows. This is your schedule.

This is what to try. And these are the issues you're going to experience. And so let's work through those.

And I just wanted parents to be able to foundationally understand what mechanisms are actually at work, why responsivity and support are not just nice and good to do, but are actually the blueprint for how to facilitate sleep. Like babies cannot clear cortisol themselves. They need that oxytocin buffer.

They need us. They need us. It's not giving them the gift of sleep to deprive them of that presence and that support and that attunement.

And so just building base off of that understanding and then moving into, okay, these are different arrangements that you could try. This is how you can safely co-bed your twins. So co-bedding means putting babies in one sleep space.

I actually need to, um, send the updated version because I expanded it after doing a little bit more research and now have a triplets as well because, um, yeah, there's, there's so many different options that you can try, but, um, I, I pulled from the work of Dr. Helen Ball and, um, Dr. McKenna and, um, yeah, just was really just trying to put together all of the resources that I could find until that point. And then to infuse that with the anecdotal evidence that I've received from working with so many different mothers who have had such a wide range of experiences and making that an informed approach of these are things to try.

This is what the research says, and now let's navigate this together. So, um, we discussed common challenges that are experienced. Um, a lot of it applies to a single baby, but a lot of it is very twin specific, right?

Just because there's so much more nuance with navigating multiple, you know, multiple different temperaments, multiple different sleep needs. Um, you know, you could literally have one baby who's on the lowest end of the sleep needs spectrum and the other one who is like on the highest end, like that, that's pretty similar to my lived experience. And it's kind of radical to experience that with identical twins, but there you go.

Um, and so we navigate all of that and then go into, um, what is biologically appropriate for sleep for babies and share about all the different ways to, gosh, I'm out of water.

Ceridwen

I know we've been talking a long time now.

Alaina

I know to how to support them through that, um, different strategies to utilize different ways to connect. And then it actually closes with a chapter about the mother-baby triad and just, helping to weave together all of the understanding of, um, what is physically going on and how we can facilitate that relationship, how we can navigate ruptures and repairs, how we can support our babies and ourselves. Um, so that we can have the best experience navigating whatever challenges may arise.

Like my goal is to build out as many options and resourcing as possible, but giving that foundational understanding so that no matter what choices that the parents who, you know, read my guide make that they are doing that from a supported place.

Ceridwen

But I just, I just have so much like admiration for you and creating all of this. And like, I think, I hope that anyone listening to this episode, especially anyone who has like known you from before listening to this episode and perhaps having now heard about your journey that you went through in your own experience. And then to get to this place where you're sharing like all of this knowledge and to, I believe better the lives of so many moms and babies.

It's like, I have a goosebumps just it's, it's amazing. Amazing. And I, I hope you're really proud of yourself.

Um, I just have one more question. Is your, I know we've been talking so a long time.

Alaina

Are you okay?

Ceridwen

My last question that I have for you for this episode. Um, and then we will be going on to record the Q&A episode for anyone listening. So, um, we're going to be recording a Q&A episode about preparing for postpartum with twins, a little bit more of the like practical stuff.

So, um, for the last question for this episode, I ask everyone who comes on the podcast, if you could go back and talk to yourself, when you were first pregnant with your babies, what advice would you have given to yourself? Like knowing what you know now and all the experience you've had now?

Alaina

I would, I would tell myself that your capacity will expand far beyond your wildest dreams and that you, you simply do not have to be fearful of this experience because it's going to become the foundation for, it's going to become the culmination of all of the work that you've done to this point. All of the care about holistic health, all of the care about child development and, you know, psychology, neuroscience, all of these things that were passions and pieces of my life prior to that point, none of it was wasted and all of it was meant for this. This is the greatest undertaking, the greatest privilege that you have ever had and don't resist allowing it to fundamentally change you.

Ceridwen

Before we end, Alaina, could you just tell us for any moms who are curious to learn more about you and wondering how they can maybe connect with you in your work, where they can find you?

Alaina

Yeah, so as we said earlier in the episode, I am nurturing twins just at nurturing twins on Instagram. I have a Facebook page as well and I started an off social media space for us to really be able to gather and just to be able to resource mothers the way that twin mothers deserve to be resourced. It's the nurturing twins village.

There's monthly, we have mother circles and then we have expert calls where different experts will come in and share webinars to really just build out the resource library for you. I mean, my dream is that every new twin mother, as soon as she finds out that she's pregnant, can get directed towards nurturing twins in some regard and get the practical and community support that you need. So if you just go to nurturing twins.com, it'll direct you right to the village.

Ceridwen

Amazing, and everybody definitely should head right on over. I think hopefully through this episode, I feel like we've sprinkled in a little details of what you might find inside and I think it's an absolutely fabulous resource. So please head on over there and everything will be linked in the episode description right for you there.

So you can head on over. For anyone listening, if you're watching on YouTube, please be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a video and leave a comment letting us know how you're preparing for postpartum, especially if you're preparing with twins or if you have already gone through postpartum with twins, please give us all your tips. If you're listening as a podcast, please be sure you are subscribed and if you want to support the podcast, I would really appreciate if you could take a moment to leave a review.

Before you go, please share this episode with another pregnant or postpartum mama who would benefit from this episode. Thank you for listening and thank you so much, Alaina, for joining us today. We're going to go ahead and record our Q&A episode now.

So for everyone listening, we'll see you in the next episode and I'll see you then.