The Battle for the Breast

Nursing twins can be challenging, but many mothers who get past the first few weeks find the nursing relationship incredibly rewarding. The special time spent with both babies during breastfeeding often enhances the mother-children relationship. Because of the tight bonds formed, it's easy to see why nursing continues past the first birthday.

Abby Aldrich of Chesaning, Mich., knows how easily nursing soothes her twin girls. "Lena and Liberty frequently ask to nurse when they find themselves dealing with some of the frustration of being 18 months old," Aldrich says. "There are a lot of frustration nursing sessions with two 18-month-olds constantly in each other's face and playing with each other's toys."

But Aldrich soon discovered that while nursing can make life's little problems seem much smaller for the girls, her twins were also becoming competitive with each other – rivaling for nursing time. This revelation happened when she and her husband began pairing off with the toddlers on the weekends to give them special adult-child time.

"Those times spent with just one child have really shown me that there is a lot of what I call jealous nursing," says Aldrich. "If we're home and Libby asks to nurse, Lena will definitely come running over and nurse too – unless she is really engrossed in a project." Aldrich says both twins are equally competitive.

"It's as if when they're together, whoever asks first is only asking because she doesn't want the other one to ask first," she says. "It's silly. But when I am with just Lena or just Libby, they hardly ask to nurse at all."

Curbing competitive nursing isn't easy, but once Aldrich recognized that many of their nursing sessions were initiated by the need to be "first," she employed a favorite game to distract her twins when one of them asked to nurse.

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