Yesterday we had a home visit from a “lactation consultant” to help us figure out this breast feeding thing. You see, the babies can latch onto the breast and it even looks like they are sucking but they seem pretty hungry after breastfeeding so we have to continue supplementing the feedings with this syringe and feeding tube.

Needless to say, this tube feeding, while effective, is very time consuming and was getting old, fast. Jonathan was also having some trouble latching on and became fussy quickly when breast feeding. As a result, we knew we needed help. We called the hospital and they referred us to a lactation consultant. She arrived yesterday with her high-tech scale and, before we knew it, we were weighing the babies prior to feeding and then we weighed them after feeding. Everything looked fine until the weight of the babies showed they were not sucking in any milk. Ugh.

Then, it happened. The lactation consultant pulled out the best darn thing I’ve ever seen. She pulled out The Haberman Feeder, which is a phallic-looking bottle that can be manipulated to force the baby to suck harder to get it’s milk. The cost: $25 per bottle. I would have paid ten times that amount to get something that can be used in one sitting so easily. So now the babies are being fed with this gift from heaven and we’ll continue to put them to the breast to see if the training pays off. Keep your fingers crossed.