Latest / Twin Mom Life / How To Actually Meet Your Twin Breastfeeding and Pumping Goals with Shelly from Twin Mom Guide
Transcript
- Jessielee Sittig: If I could go back in time, I wish I would have better prepared for breastfeeding my twins. I had confidence since I breastfed my daughter for 15 months, but breastfeeding two babies at the same time is way different. Shelly created the twin mom guide to breastfeeding twins to provide practical, tangible, and reliable twin breastfeeding education and support. As you just heard, she's a twin mom. Hello and welcome to the Twin Mom Life podcast. I'm your host, Jess. I created this podcast to help build community, connection, and most importantly, friendships among moms of multiples. Being a twin mom can be amazing and magical. That twin bond is unlike anything I've ever witnessed, but it can also be isolating and overwhelming. I'll be chatting with other twin moms, diving deep into the twin experience. Hi, welcome to the podcast today we have Shelly, how are you? Thank you for taking the time out of your busy twin mom life to listen along. I hope this podcast shed some light on a topic that's been on your heart and gave you more confidence as a twin mama. If you know a twin mom, please send this her way. If you like what you heard today, please subscribe to the podcast and leave a review. Check out the show notes to be connected with today's guest and get discount codes for brands I love. See you next Thursday. Until then. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): I'm so good. How are you, Jessie? Jessielee Sittig: I'm good. Thanks for coming on today. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah, so my name's Shelly. I am the I guess creator behind twin mom guide on Instagram. I Obviously have twins so fraternal twin boys and we have a singleton girl my husband and I I've been a registered nurse for 15 years and for the last 10 or 11 I've been working exclusively with like moms and babies and supporting breastfeeding and then Jessielee Sittig: Registered nurse and IBCLC lactation consultant who specializes in twins and multiples. The course covers breastfeeding basics every mom should know, but also covers the twin-specific help you're not going to find anywhere else. giving advice on what works for us so you don't have to learn the hard way. Juggling two babies at the same time is challenging, but I'm confident we can learn from each other and figure out how to raise these babies together. You are made for this. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): I'm an international board certified lactation consultant specializing in twins and multiples and I've been doing that for the last six years. Jessielee Sittig: That's amazing. It's like, I feel like you and Allegra from Aloha Nutrition are similar with like the dynamic duo. Like you're not just a lactation consultant. You also have that nursing background where hers is a dietician. So just think that's so impressive and gives you, like such a leg up and you have twins. So you're like, have the personal experience side. So that's so awesome. And before we, yes, she was so fun. And ⁓ Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah, yeah, Allegra is fantastic too. Jessielee Sittig: you know, was definitely shouting you out on the podcast, which was really fun. So before we dive into it, can you tell me how you filled your cup today or if you have plans to do so? ⁓ Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah. Okay, so. This is going to be a little long of an explanation, but I think it's important for other twin moms to hear if they're just in a busy season of life. So my husband works a lot. He works 65 to 80 hours a week on average, Monday to Friday. He typically works like 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., sometimes till midnight. Then he works Saturday nights, sometimes Saturday afternoon, Sunday afternoon, Sunday nights. So he works a lot and I homeschool our three kids. And so I Jessielee Sittig: It addresses the biggest concerns that twin moms have, like how to build a milk supply for two babies, tandem feeding with both nursing and bottle positions, And supports both nursing and pumping journeys from a twin mom perspective. As twin moms, we face unique challenges, so finding a course made for us in mind is key. It's an online, Yeah. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): really don't have like time alone. Like I'm with our kids basically 24-7. So I've had to get really good at like building in ways to fill my cup while my children are around. And it's been that way since our twins were born. So ⁓ my way that I fill my cup every night is that... Jessielee Sittig: On-demand course with over 60 video lessons, seven bonus downloads, and a private Facebook community. And the best part, it's only $99. Check out my link in the show notes to get your course today. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): I do bedtime with our three kids, so after we brush teeth and whatever floss we are in bed, I read them a few picture books and we read few from our chapter book, which I love reading with my kids and that's one of my favorite ways to connect with them. So that feels cup filling in and of its own, but then ⁓ we're done reading, ⁓ Sometimes I sing them some songs. ⁓ always ask, but if I'm too tired, sometimes we skip it. ⁓ them some songs and then as soon as we're done that I put my headphones in and I listen to an audiobook that is not learning, it's just pure entertainment and so I get to cuddle with my kids every night and listen to an audiobook and like sure some nights I'd rather like couch ride and watch Netflix but this is a way that I can predictably like depend on that I'm gonna get to do something for myself so yeah every night I cuddle with my little trio and I listen to some audiobooks and that Jessielee Sittig: Hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): is like my main way of filling my cup right now. Jessielee Sittig: Aww, I love that. And what are you currently listening to? Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): That is a good question, let me see. ⁓ It ⁓ is ⁓ The ⁓ Things We Unfinished. kind like a dual timeline. ⁓ yeah, and it's really good. But ⁓ because I have so many of friends like ⁓ follow me on Goodreads and they're how do you read so many books? like, audiobooks. ⁓ Jessielee Sittig: Ha ha. Hmm. Okay, cool. Yes. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): So yeah, in doing that, because my boys take forever to fall asleep. you know, I easily listen to like one to two audio books a week. So that is my way of filling my cup. So my encouragement to other twin moms is just get creative because sometimes the resources or the time or support aren't there for you to like do what you would prefer to do. So just find something you can do in your current season. Jessielee Sittig: Mm-hmm. I love that. That's such a good tip. And yeah, I think audio books are like a major mom hack. And it's like the same thing with podcasts. I'm like, love learning, but I don't really have tons of time or the brain capacity to like sit and read. So if someone could read it to me, then that's just a mom hack. I love that. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah, it truly is and like don't check your library. So like I have an audible membership that's kind of my little splurge on myself, but that's one book a month. local library, I listen to so many like new releases and everything for free. So moms get your ⁓ your library card back for yourself. ⁓ yeah, audiobooks are is where it's at right now. ⁓ Jessielee Sittig: That's such a good point. feel like when I think of a library, like I don't think of it having access to audiobooks. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah, audiobooks, ebooks, like digital magazines. We use our library quite frequently. But yeah, my library has two different audiobook apps. So I can choose up to like 25 audiobooks a month between the two, which is crazy. Yeah, for free. Yeah, so. Jessielee Sittig: ⁓ wow. That's amazing. And for free. Yeah, that's fantastic. That's great. I'm trying to think this is this is reminding me that I am part of a book club. And I haven't started reading the book. And I purchased the book at book club. And then like I purchased a hard copy like on Amazon. And then the whole time I was thinking, why didn't I get an audio book? Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): you Jessielee Sittig: So maybe after this, I'll purchase the audio book version because last time that I went to book club, I was like an F student and I did not read the book. And I was like, I'm just here to hang out. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): you It's so hard. you know, I think I've read, what is it? It's April. I think I read one or two physical books this year, not including like my kids chapter books that we are starting to dive into. yeah, it's hard as a mom, but like I feel like I'm always doing laundry or dishes or cooking or something. And so I listen to an audio book. Jessielee Sittig: Yes. Yes, that's like, love trying to habit stack. I do that a lot. If I'm like gonna fold laundry, then I'm gonna listen to a podcast or something. so my daughter is six, she just turned six in February. And we just started reading chapter books with her too, like at night reading one chapter. And we read or reading Charlotte's Web right now. ⁓ which I feel like is good because it has some pictures in it. It's minimal, but I feel like it's a good transition. And she's seen the movie, so she already kind of knows the story. And the very first night she was like, I don't want to do this. This is boring. There's no pictures. But I'm like, let's just try it. And if you don't like it, then we'll read something else. Like she loves Fancy Nancy. So I'm like, then we'll do a Fancy Nancy book or something. So I read one chapter. And I feel like the first few chapters are kind of short, like, honestly, like two or three pages. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah. Jessielee Sittig: And I finished one chapter and I'm like, okay, that was one chapter. And she was like, we'll read more. So I was like, yay, because I've heard parents do that. And I think it's so special. And like, what a great way to cultivate a love for reading early on. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): You Yeah, yeah, I am super passionate about reading and I always like joke to my husband that if I had more time, I would start like an Instagram for kids books because we read so much and we always have like even when I worked full time, I would read with my twins for like 30 minutes before I left for work every day and like always before bed. It's just always been such a big part of our like family culture. And yeah, Charlotte's Web is like so cute. We read that ⁓ last year, I think, and then my kids have Jessielee Sittig: Aww. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): yodo card now are you familiar with yodos yeah so that charlotte's web is always playing it's such a sweet sweet book Jessielee Sittig: It's so cute. feel like I've seen the movie, I've read the book and I still tear up at the end. Like it's just such a sweet story. So. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah, it's so cute. Jessielee Sittig: I love that. Okay, so I'm trying to think for me and filling my cup. I was telling you earlier today, last night was a little rough with the boys. I don't know what the heck is going on. But they were up a lot last night. So I'm currently drinking some coffee. And I'm thinking like, maybe we'll, I'll go treat myself to like another latte today. Like we'll do like a special, coffee out and I don't tend to do that. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): you Jessielee Sittig: super often. that just sounds like a nice treat. And I think it's we're supposed to get storms all week. So it kind of just feels nice to have like, sip on coffee all day. So I think I'm going to treat myself to like a coffee out. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): That sounds so nice and well deserved. Jessielee Sittig: Yeah, just, I know it was, yeah, I know we were talking and like, are they getting sick? Is it teething? I don't know. They seem like they're not sick, but maybe it's teething or something. So today is gonna be a survival day with coffee for sure. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah, and it's so wild too, I feel like as a twin mom. ⁓ are my kids now obviously sleep pretty good, but there was a night a couple weeks ago where somebody was up every hour and a half to two hours and I was like dragging my feet the next day. said to my husband, I literally feel like I'm going to die. I do not remember how this was reality for, you know, in our case, we had very complicated babies and toddlers and for many years I did not sleep. And I was like, I don't know how this was a reality for years because I cannot handle this. like self, yeah. Jessielee Sittig: Yeah, it's hard. Like, sleep deprivation is real. And that's I was thinking. I'm like, we're so spoiled now. Like, for the most part, everyone sleeps through the night. So when that happened last night, I'm like, wow, that was like having newborn twins again. And yeah, I don't, I'm glad that I don't really remember that time. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Thank you. Yeah. I know and for anyone listening who's in the thick of it right now it gets so much better and you it's truly you don't know how you do it when you're in it because like you said you look back or you have one bad night when you're years out of it and you're like oh my gosh how did I do this for days weeks months on end so yes if you're in the thick of it it gets so much better so just hang in there Jessielee Sittig: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yes, so, so true. Yes. Okay, so I would love to know how you're balancing all of this. Like you ⁓ working and you have this awesome Instagram account and you're homeschooling. How? How? ⁓ Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): ⁓ Gosh, yeah. So ⁓ I need to preface this. I mentioned my husband works a lot, but he works from home the vast majority of the time. So that makes things infinitely easier than if he worked 65 to 80 hours and wasn't home. so still easily do because I check with him and if he doesn't have any meetings or anything going on, I can easily like pop out for a consult or ⁓ I do a lot of virtual as well. And our schedule is just always changing. So ⁓ the night before we always just try touch base. We're like, OK, you have meetings at this time. I have a consult at this time. I'm going to do school with the kids at these times. I mean, start dinner here like we just ⁓ it would be so nice if we had this very predictable schedule but we don't it's always changing so yeah we just kind of touch base every night and I was saying to Jessie before we started like something is always like behind here and usually at my house it's like cleaning and laundry I just can't keep up we've discussed maybe hiring some outside help for cleaning but we haven't quite Jessielee Sittig: Mm-hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): hold the trigger on that yet. yeah, it's just, I don't know, you just pick what your most important priorities are and then. Jessielee Sittig: Mm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): you know, everything else, you know, some things you're going to drop some balls. So decide which ones are your plastic ones that you don't care if you drop them. And for me, that's cleaning and laundry. we, you know, prioritize, like, obviously, the kids schooling, obviously, my clients, my husband's job, and then like outdoor time, reading time, like spending time with friends or family. And, yeah, like I probably have eight loads of laundry to do right now. So that's what I'll be working on later. you Jessielee Sittig: I feel that my husband and I have very different schedules and where it's like not consistent. It's changing every day. And we've been like joking, ⁓ I have been like, I need the skylight calendar or something, because our, ⁓ it's different every day. And if we don't have that communication the night before, it's like, ⁓ what's going on with this and Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Jessielee Sittig: I am lucky that I have my mom to help me with the boys. So my daughter is in kindergarten. boys are two ⁓ and busy, ⁓ very toddlers ⁓ who absolutely come in and join on the podcast recording. ⁓ So are with my mom right now and I'm thankful for that. But it's a lot and I ⁓ absolutely that what tends to fall to the wayside is the cleaning. I also cannot wait to hire house cleaners at some point that I think would just be ⁓ a big stress relief to know that that was going to be taken care of by somebody else ⁓ and that isn't currently something that we have but something that's on like my my goals for this year, ⁓ Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah, same. And I've tried and I'm going to try again. I've tried different cleaning schedules and I will say my kids really love to help, but it's more overstimulating for me sometimes. And I'm like, I need to be better with this. And it's just from that pressure of ⁓ feeling like, ⁓ my gosh, we have so much going on all the time. I would rather clean the bathroom for 10 minutes alone than it takes 30 minutes and, ⁓ know, possibly be messier than when we started. But ⁓ am going to, you know, try. again, because I will say our kids are they're like really great kids. I don't share them on social media or anything, but they really like to help and work like our twin boys. They're so cute. Most of our neighbors are like quite elderly, like in their 70s and 80s. And our boys go and clean everybody's curbs every week with their little wheelbarrows and shovels. And ⁓ night they were helping our neighbor plant grass seed for like two hours. ⁓ ⁓ so they're Jessielee Sittig: Aww. was so sweet. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): So I always go back and forth like it should I like be doing it myself and like teaching my kids or involving them more I should say because they do know how ⁓ or like do we outsource it? It's so hard and it goes back to that mindset of moms thinking we need to do it all I feel like which is a whole other conversation but yeah it's it's on our radar for sure we're just still deciding what what we're gonna do. I'm gonna try another cleaning schedule see if I can stick to it if not we'll revisit it. Jessielee Sittig: There's just not enough time in a day. And I absolutely love the idea of like including kids. when you have, and yeah, but like there's only so much time in a day and so many things to get done. So it's like, yeah, maybe they can help fold the laundry, but there's still like the dishes in the bathroom that needs to be cleaned and like all these things. And I love the analogy of like the plastic versus glass balls. Because I think it's such a good visual of like what is really important to you and what. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Jessielee Sittig: do you not really care so much if you drop a ball? And I feel the same way. Like I have similar priorities. So agreed. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and your priorities can always shift too. That's what I tell moms. Like I work with so many twin families and sometimes we have to let something go that really is important to us, but it's not like permanent. Like things change so rapidly. I feel like especially when your twins are little, like in newborn days, like month to month things change. So, you know, I always tell families like choose what's most important. And if something that's important to you isn't really possible in this season, like Jessielee Sittig: Sure. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): it likely will be quite soon. So yeah, again, anyone listening, just know that things aren't always concrete. It's very fluid when you're a mom and things are always changing. Jessielee Sittig: It's so true. feel like, especially as a twin mom, feel like a huge theme that comes up is like how quickly you kind of have to pivot. And if something isn't working, then like no decision is permanent. And I think especially as a twin mom, like having a singleton first and then having twins, I definitely learned how to pivot faster once I had twins. ⁓ because you only have the capacity to handle so much. know we are talking about this off air, but I think we're both like, Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Jessielee Sittig: recovering perfectionists. And I think having twins actually helps like not be a perfectionist because you only have the mental capacity to have so much on your plate. And some things you just have to let go. So you're not having like a mental breakdown all the time. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yes, yes. Having twins was incredibly humbling for me because, ⁓ gosh, I was, I'm trying to think of the timeline here. I was working as a nurse for I think two and a half, three years at that point supporting breastfeeding families and I had a very clear picture of what I wanted motherhood to look like for me and then we found out we were having twins and I'm like, well. there goes everything out the window or so I thought. ⁓ you know, it just it really I had a hard time transitioning to and I am so thankful now that in my work, like supporting other twin moms, like because my thinking was so black and white and rigid as a new mom. And it was like, you know, for example, ⁓ my gosh, they're having trouble latching. They're not going to ever be able to latch. And it's like, no, they're they're just born a couple of weeks early and they need a few weeks to strengthen up before it gets easier for them. and you know I'm just so thankful that like I really struggled and I talk about this occasionally I haven't talked about it a lot but I really really struggled when my twins were little and that's what led me to do this work now and ⁓ I'm just really thankful that I get to work with other twin moms now and just kind of like ease the anxiety that I so deeply felt because I didn't really have anybody to like tell me that things were gonna get better or that it wasn't so black and white or that you know two weeks from now things Jessielee Sittig: Mm-hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): would look quite different. So yeah, so that's why I always say, if you're in the thick of it now, give it a week or two, and it's probably going to be different. Jessielee Sittig: Yes. Well, and on that note, what was your inspiration behind Twin Mom Guide? And when did you start it? Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): ⁓ that's such a great question. I, ⁓ was so important to me and I was ⁓ in public health at the time. I'd been working with breastfeeding families. I breastfeeding clinics. I did breastfeeding hotline on the telephone. I was teaching prenatal breastfeeding classes, home visits, like ⁓ doing all. And ⁓ all the twin families that I had seen, it was ⁓ like complex and... Jessielee Sittig: Wow. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): just so overwhelming and I just felt so deeply for these moms and so many of them didn't reach their breastfeeding goals and I was working to becoming an IBCLC at the time but I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to do it because I'm like ⁓ there's like only two IBCLC positions at my workplace and they're both taken like ⁓ I had this kind of closed mindset but anyways Jessielee Sittig: Mm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): I found out I was having twins and I was like, is it even possible to breastfeed twins? Because I've been doing this for a couple of years and I've not seen a twin mom have a successful quote unquote journey. And so I'm not kidding, every day I'd be sitting at my desk and I'm Googling like, is it possible to breastfeed twins? Is it possible to exclusively breastfeed twins? And we had this one handout and it was always kind of a joke when we would teach prenatal class, there was this one twin handout for people who were having twins with like, because like all of our education, everything is geared towards singletons. It wasn't twin specific. anyways, so when I had my twins, I was very fortunate. They were born at 37 and six. They were good sizes. Yeah, they were both over six pounds ⁓ they both latched like I tandem nursed them right in recovery after my C-section. And I'm not kidding. ⁓ like exhaled and like, we made it. Well, let's fast forward to the next feeding when both of them wouldn't latch and I'm vomiting. Jessielee Sittig: Sure. That's great. Aww. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): from the anesthesia from my c-section and I'm like ⁓ my gosh I'm like this is a disaster and they both lost a lot of weight which was ⁓ related to all the fluids I had during my c-section and not an indication of them getting enough breast milk so I was kind of arguing with the nurse I'm like I'm like you know my twin bee he peed 12 times ⁓ his first 24 hours I'm like this isn't physiologically normal for a baby to Jessielee Sittig: ⁓ no. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): to pee that much. It's because I had so much IV fluid. And I had, and she was like, no, you have to give them formula. know, I had asked for a pump and they put it at the door and walked away and I was by myself and just had a C-section. like, how do I get it? And, you Jessielee Sittig: Sure. you ⁓ my gosh, and like, help me, I'm a first time mom. How do I do this? Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah, I think they assume. I think they assumed because I worked in public health and like I knew a lot of the nurses on the floor either from nursing school or just from my role in public health. I think they just assumed I knew what I was doing and they're like, okay, so yeah, like ⁓ and it was just really discouraging. Like my milk supply initially was, it seemed low and I had lost a lot of blood during delivery but didn't need a transfusion but I had lost quite a bit of blood. Babies weren't latching. We were doing some formula supplementation. ⁓ I was pumping but hardly getting anything because I was using a gigantic flange that was nowhere near what my size was supposed to be. Jessielee Sittig: Hmm. Mm-hmm. That was shocking to me. Like, all the things that you need to know about pumping. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah, yeah, and it was just, yeah. So my milk finally started to transition around day four, day five, and I was triple feeding, which is when you nurse the babies, you pump, and then you bottle feed all within the same feeding cycle. And so I was them, ⁓ was feeding them every two to two and a half hours during the day, because I was really trying to get their weight up and increase my milk supply. But my feeding cycle, ⁓ I would have a 10 minute break before the next feeding cycle started with triple feeding. ⁓ feeding, I'll just say right now, is not sustainable. ⁓ Jessielee Sittig: So hard. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): recommend it with my families. Some families that I work with like to do like one or two triple feeding cycles a day, but it's not something that you should be doing every feed for weeks, sometimes months on end. I've had families come to me like four months postpartum and they're doing triple feeding still. like, ⁓ no, we are stopping this today because it's just not sustainable. And I was so discouraged Jessielee Sittig: Hmm. Yes. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): you know, they were my milk was starting to increase, but it was like I was feeding constantly and I was just like, ⁓ my gosh, is this going to work for us? Is it not? And I remember one of my coworkers, she's so sweet. She had twins who were I think 18 or 20 at the time. And she knew I was having a hard time. She texted me the one day. She was like, just so you know, she was like my first night with my twins. I just went to sleep and they didn't wake up and I didn't feed them for 10 hours. She's like, and you know, they're doing great now. She's like, don't be so hard on yourself, which like if you're listening, obviously you need to feed your babies. She was just telling me that, you know, she was just making me kind of ⁓ point that she really had no clue what she was doing and everything worked out. And so anyways, the time they were about four to five weeks old, like tandem nursing was going well ⁓ and breastfeeding going well. Jessielee Sittig: Aw. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): I was able to exclusively breastfeed my twins for two years. They had formula supplementation from days two to four because I didn't know about hand expressing and pumping wasn't working because my flange was gigantic. we went on to breastfeed for two years and I think what around the time they turned one, I told my husband like, I was like, I really want to like finish ⁓ my to becoming an IBCLC and work with Jessielee Sittig: Mm. Mm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): twin families. like, because I was then, you know, in all my spare time on maternity leave, ⁓ helping other twin moms. Like one of my co-workers had twins four months after I did. And I was like on the phone with her all the time and just helping her. And then another friend had twins a few months after that. And so I was helping all these twin families and they were doing so well with breastfeeding. And I was like, ⁓ my gosh, ⁓ ⁓ Jessielee Sittig: No. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): you anybody who's listening, you likely were given singleton information for how to breastfeed twins and it does not apply. Like twins need twin specific information and what we tell families for singletons does not translate to the twin world most of the time. you likely were given singleton information for how to breastfeed twins and it does not apply. ⁓ Like twins need specific information and what we tell families for singletons does not translate to the twin world most of the time. Jessielee Sittig: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): So ⁓ I went back to work, so I live in Canada and we were, I was extremely, extremely lucky have a long maternity leave. So when I went back to work, was like, you know, seeing all the twin families and I was like, okay, what do I need to like finish my IBCLC? Because I had all my practice hours. I'd been doing it for like... four or five years at that point. And so I did all my education hours, which was another thing. I had to get it done in like two months. And then I found out I was pregnant somewhat unexpectedly with my daughter. And my twins were having a massive sleep regression. So it's like, I would go to work every day, 8.30 to 4.30. My husband and I would literally like high five in the driveway and he went out to work at that point. didn't work at home. he was on afternoon. Jessielee Sittig: ⁓ my goodness. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): be home with our boys during the day and so I would do you know dinner, bath, bedtime with the boys. I would do my online course till midnight and then my boys were waking up for whatever reason they were up for two hour stretches either between ⁓ to three, two to four, three to five every single day and so and like ⁓ not want dad. He walked in it was like a mutiny so mom was rocking them ⁓ know super nauseous because I'm in my first trimester ⁓ it was like so hard. Jessielee Sittig: ⁓ my gosh. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): and I was just like I have to do this because I know if I don't do it now and I have another baby it's just gonna get pushed off even further so yeah you know long story short I was supposed to write my IBCLC exam March 30th 2020 ⁓ we all know what happened there so my exam was cancelled and I had my daughter ⁓ and was you know doing practice exams so I had a newborn two-year-old twins Jessielee Sittig: Sure. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): And I was studying for my IBCLC exam. My husband was back to work like two and a half weeks after I had her. It was wild. so I wrote. Yeah, it was ⁓ looking back and like, don't know how we survived, but I wrote my exams on two and a half hours sleep ⁓ when she was like two months old. And I passed and I was like, ⁓ my gosh, like it just so I was doing so much again. Jessielee Sittig: ⁓ my gosh. That's a lot. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): on Mat leave doing so much support because all the breastfeeding services were shut down. So I was doing a lot of volunteer work at that ⁓ doing like breastfeeding support for I believe this before my daughter turned one, I created Twin Mom Guide. And my initial plan was to have like a twin blog and kind of offer like breastfeeding services on the side. But ⁓ ended up creating like the online twin breastfeeding course and starting my private practice working Jessielee Sittig: Hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): with twin families and yeah, it just all kind of flowed from there. And I'm just like so, so grateful that like every day that, you know, I feel like God used one of the hardest periods of my time to now help other families. And I truly love what I do. And I'm so thankful. And it's like such an honor to work with like all these amazing twin families. And so many of them, I work with them like through their whole journey. Like I just graduated, quote unquote, a mom the other day. Jessielee Sittig: Hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): like she breastfed for 20 months and we're working on weaning now and yeah she just weaned her twins at 20 months and it was like I got to be with her from pregnancy all the way through weaning and it's that way with a lot of my families and I'm just like I said I'm so blessed and it's truly like ⁓ absolute dream job and I love love love working with twin families and just giving them the support and ⁓ they need because like honestly like I've said before Singleton Jessielee Sittig: Amazing! Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Singleton advice typically doesn't work in the twin world for most things, especially with breastfeeding and and all those things. that's very story of ⁓ how this to be. Jessielee Sittig: I it though. love all of that background and I think it's so true. I think that's a really big theme of the podcast is that there was a twin that was lacking. So they created it. So I think that's incredible that you were able to ⁓ to breastfeed for so long and then to help twin families like figure out how to do that. And I love that you provide support from like Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): him. Jessielee Sittig: pregnancy, the very beginning stages all the way through weaning, because those were things I wasn't prepared for. ⁓ do you wean? How do you wean breastfeeding or pumping? All those things. I was constantly like Googling things and I would have loved to have twin specific support. So ⁓ tried to tandem breastfeed my sons in the hospital. ⁓ I feel like I had kind of that like angelic very first moment. It took a lot of people. It was me and my husband and a nurse all holding the babies, but I did tandem feed and I was like, wow. And then yeah, reality hit and I was like, this is hard. And I made it to 37 weeks, but my boys were tiny. They were 414 and 413. So they were just like little guys and it just got really hard. And I feel like the lactation consultants in the hospital, I mean, they definitely weren't trying to be discouraging, but they were giving me advice for singletons. And I breastfed my daughter for 15 months. So I had I had this that didn't translate to breastfeeding twins. So I very quickly moved to pumping in the hospital. And even that was super overwhelming, like the flange size and what they gave me was huge and okay, now I have to figure out like, how do I measure this and where do I get inserts and it was kind of like this, this new world that opened up. So I did get help from a lactation consultant to kind of guide me through the best way to pump and how to do that. But her specialty singletons. So I was talking to about this, I kind of wish that I would have tried again and I didn't and you know, she was saying it's really not all or nothing like you can do it gradually. ⁓ ⁓ and then you can give formula and then you can try breastfeeding again like it isn't this like black and white all or nothing experience. So ⁓ would you ⁓ a mom who was maybe struggling through what I was struggling with? Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah, no, that's such a great question. And this is why I'm like such an advocate of like specifically doing twin specific breastfeeding education before you have your babies, because you know, the hospital, it's going to be kind of a mixed bag of the support you're going to receive. You may have like amazing support, I found in like I've worked with close to 300 twin families now. That's typically the minority. Or the support is amazing, there's just not enough time. So they're in there to help you for five minutes. Jessielee Sittig: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. sure. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): But truly, like when I do a home visit with twins or even a virtual visit, it's a first visit is usually like two hours because there's so much to go through. you know, so I really strongly advocate for moms to get educated before they have their twins, because then you can kind of spot to when you're given advice that is probably not going to apply to you or your situation. But yeah, I really recommend ⁓ nursing baby individually. ⁓ Jessielee Sittig: ⁓ yeah. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): until we know that they're both latching well and transferring milk well. And then we move on to the learned skill of tandem nursing, because, you know, even though we have twins, there are two different babies. You're very likely going to have one who's a better latcher than the other. You might have one who has more of an appetite than the other. so, yeah, I really strongly encourage to, you know, nurse individually at first. If you have extra helpers around and you want to try out tandem nursing, like, yeah, let's go for it. Jessielee Sittig: Mm-hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): But I don't recommend for the vast majority of moms to tandem nurse right off the bat because most babies aren't ready for it. And honestly, a lot of times most moms aren't ready for that either. So we focus on the families I'm working with. We focus on individually latching at first, tandem nursing and practicing when we can. And then, you know, if we need to pump and bottle feed because babies aren't nursing well, that's fine. We're going to pump. We're going to pace bottle feed so that it's as similar to nursing at the breast as possible. And then we start adding in nursing sessions. ⁓ I usually recommend that we nurse for the first morning session of the day because your milk supply tends to be higher and the babies tend to be more content in the beginning of the day compared to the end of the day. ⁓ Jessielee Sittig: Mm. Sure. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): And so then when that one nursing session is going well and mom has more confidence and babies are doing well, okay, let's add a second session. Let's add a third session. And then you can transition to as many nursing sessions and bottle feeds as you want. And I find most families like to do a combo where, ⁓ know, they're nursing but babies are also getting bottles for some feeds of the day because that's what's working best for mom and babies. the same thing goes with tandem. Like we practice once a day when we're ready to, and when once a day is going well, we can go to twice a day and three times a day. And so for some families that transition happens really quick. And even for myself, was like tandem nursing was not going well till about three and a half weeks. And then I'd say three days later, we were only tandem nursing. Like just happened quickly, but for those early first few weeks, it felt like it was never going to happen. And then one day. ⁓ it just clicked for them and I find most babies as they get closer to that 40 week gestation mark start nursing better. I, yeah, we kind of call like babies who are born around 36, 37 weeks, like the great pretenders, because they look like a full term baby, but they do not feed like a full term baby. ⁓ even too, I tell families this, when we are looking at say a Jessielee Sittig: Mm-hmm. ⁓ that's interesting. Mm-hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): a twin born at 37 weeks versus a singleton born at 37 weeks. The singleton is likely going to feed better than the twins because the twins tend to be smaller. They were fighting for, you know, resources in the womb and they just tend to not be as strong as a singleton counterpart born at the same gestational age. So I really like to prepare moms mentally because it can be really hard, especially for us type A moms who just, you know, want everything to work on the schedule that we had in our mind. ⁓ Jessielee Sittig: Mm-hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): You know, it just it it can look so different day to day, even week to week. So I tell moms like, let's not even compare feed to feed because it's a roller coaster. Are things going better this Tuesday than they were last Tuesday? If yes, awesome. We're moving in the right direction. If not, OK, let's adjust and see what we can change. So we're moving closer to our goals. But yeah, it's just ⁓ first early weeks are are hard and I'm not going to lie. Like for most moms, they're hard. Jessielee Sittig: Hmm. Mm-hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): But when we can get through them and establish breastfeeding well, it then becomes so much more manageable. those first initial weeks are really big time investment. again, mentally, if we can have that mindset that I'm probably going to be nursing individually, it's not going to be the most time efficient And it's going to take time for tandem nursing. Or ⁓ with pumping, moms who want to exclusively pump. It can take time for our milk supply to increase and babies are still going to want to feed frequently even though they're doing bottle feeds and bottle feeds can be challenging for some twins. just knowing in our heads that the first few weeks there's going to be challenges but that's why we have support and once we get through that it becomes so much more manageable. Jessielee Sittig: I love that. And I love that you shared for you personally, that it really was around that like three week mark that things clicked because I think sometimes for me, it was like it, you know, I had a little bit of a rocky start with my daughter. Like she had tongue ties. I got mastitis. And then once we worked through that, it was a really beautiful breastfeeding journey. I was able to breastfeed her for 15 months. So with my sons, I was like, why isn't this working immediately? And Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): You Jessielee Sittig: Like they didn't have tongue ties. I guess I just was not getting that like quote unquote instant gratification or that instant success. ⁓ And I I don't know if pressured was the right word. I was encouraged in the hospital to pump ⁓ so that could, you know, get my supply going. So I'm glad that I did that, but I wish that I would have had the support to pivot back to trying breastfeeding. Like when I didn't just give birth to two babies, when I wasn't sleep deprived, you know, like all of these, I mean, I guess you're always kind of sleep deprived in the beginning. But you know, when I, didn't just like give birth and was like on this crazy adrenaline high and then like crash. So I love all of the encouragement and it just sounds. Yeah. Like your course is really amazing. So if someone wanted to access that. Would they be able to do that through your website? Can you kind of tell people where they can find that course? Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah, so. Full disclaimer right now, if you go to my website anytime in the next little bit, I'm using a template to update it. So it's like half my stuff and half some coaching business. I do not have a coaching business, but time is sparse around here. but on my website you can get the course. It is also in my Instagram, link in bio, send me a DM. I strongly encourage moms to do the online twin breastfeeding course before their babies arrive, because quite frankly, frankly you won't have time once they're here and Jessielee Sittig: Mm-hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): You want to go in feeling prepared. Like I can't guarantee success in anybody, you know, if you're working with me one-on-one or taking the course, because there's so many variables, but I can guarantee you'll feel prepared and you will know. And it's, it's really hard because like I said, support in the hospital can be kind of a mixed bag sometimes. Like even the most wonderful lactation consultants who maybe have a lot of twin experience can't spend that much time with you. But I find most of the time, most of support in the hospital does not have a lot of twin experience and they kind of give you that singleton advice or very ⁓ well-meaning. just like, okay, let's get tandem nursing right away because you have twins and you don't have a lot of time, but ⁓ really not setting most moms up for success because the vast majority can't tandem feed right off the bat. It does happen sometimes, but most of the time it doesn't. So ⁓ it's just, you know, lot of things, it's just so nuanced. Jessielee Sittig: Mm-hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): like most things in motherhood. But yeah, especially with twins, there's just so many variables that go into feeding with them because, you know, all, most of them are born before 40 weeks. ⁓ Both of them are born smaller. And then, ⁓ like said, mom, you know, depending on what type of delivery we had, we are now caring for two babies. ⁓ There sleep deprivation and we're learning ⁓ to with two little, very different babies with different personalities, different abilities. Jessielee Sittig: Mm-hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): and depending on the experience, mom has too. I have some first time moms who are absolute unicorns with breastfeeding and they tandem nurse right from the get go and go off into the sunset with hardly any complications. I've had moms where their twins are babies six and seven and they've breastfed all their other babies and they've really struggled with their twins and it took us a lot of time to get things established. I don't ever want moms to feel discouraged or feel like breastfeeding isn't possible. It 1000 % is. It just, with twins, takes more time to establish than it typically does with a singleton. Jessielee Sittig: And do you have a few tips that you would recommend for like a twin mom wanting to breastfeed? one thing you mentioned was making sure that you're practicing ⁓ one a time before just like immediately trying to tandem feed. I think that's, ⁓ as we talk about it, seems obvious, but to me, it wasn't obvious. I was like, I'm going to tandem breastfeed and that's what I'm going to do. ⁓ And yeah, I'm like, ⁓ that makes sense I should have tried at a time. ⁓ Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah. Jessielee Sittig: first. So any other tips like that? Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah. Yeah, so like you said, the ⁓ individually before tandem, switching breasts each feed. ⁓ a of times I'll see moms want to ⁓ assign ⁓ baby A, you're always on the right, baby B, you're always on the left. And we don't want to do that for like so many reasons. Number one, twins typically will have one who nurses better than the other. So we want to have the better nursing twin stimulating each breast equally. We want to have the ⁓ Jessielee Sittig: Mm. Okay. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): who's not nursing as well have access, because our breasts typically don't produce the same amount in each breast. Often on social media you'll see it referred to as a slacker boob when your one breast produces less milk. So we want both babies to have access to both breasts equally. We want both breasts to be stimulated equally. And we also want, for developmental reasons for our twins, if one baby is always on the same side feeding eight to 12 plus times a day, that can put them at risk for plagiocephaly. So like flathead, if they're always laying on their left side for feedings and they're never given the opportunity to go to the other side. So I'll have some moms say, but like, you know, baby A won't latch on the left side. So if you have a baby, singleton twins, if they won't latch on one side, that's usually a sign of like body tension. And that's super common with twins because they're sharing like a womb, you know, so most twins are born very very tense so I am a really strong advocate of working with like body workers like a chiropractor who specializes ⁓ infants. Our twins had their first chiropractic visit when they were four days old and it was truly a game changer for them moving their bowels they were both able to latch a lot better right after that visit. Let me circle back. yes, nursing individually at first until they're both nursing well and competently. And then we work on tandem nursing, switching breasts for each feed. And then honestly, like my best tip is like just work with some, if you have any concerns, work with somebody, ⁓ IBCLC, ideally one who specializes in twins ⁓ like send me a DM. If I can't be the one to help you, like for example, some moms have a certain insurance they want to use. I will connect you within my network. I have like a group of twin mom IBCLCs like we all have twin expertise. only personally but professionally as well and I will connect you with the best support for you because even if it's not coming from me I want you to have the support that you deserve. So yeah like working with somebody who specializes in twins and having twin specific like education and resources is truly my best tips for you because Jessielee Sittig: Hmm. ⁓ that's great. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): because it's just, I always say it's so different. Like with my twins, we had so many struggles. And then with my singleton, I had her after my twins. was like night and day, night and day. It was so different. So. Jessielee Sittig: Well, I bet and like breastfeeding twins first, I bet that you're probably like, ⁓ this is really easy. Just one baby. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah, and I had my poor daughter. I had like a massive oversupply because my boys weaned like two months before she was born. So my body was used to producing milk for twins. But yeah, it was just it was so different. like her and I had our challenges and stuff. like in comparison to what I went through with the boys, like, you know, it was just ⁓ night and day. And like I said, ⁓ ⁓ only when I work with twin families are we focusing specifically on breastfeeding or pumping, but like I ⁓ much practice Jessielee Sittig: Mm-hmm. sure. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): holistically and looking at the whole picture because you're not just like a milk making machine. You are a person who you know needs to feel your body and you need sleep and like we're looking at the whole picture like what can we do with for your family to help you meet your goals with the resources you have and the support you have and we're like I'm making customized individual plans for every family because there's so much nuance and one size doesn't fit all even with Jessielee Sittig: Mm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): in the twin world. So yes, to sum up my top tips, twin specific education, twin specific lactation help, don't rush into tandem, let's make sure each baby is latching well, switch sides at every feed or every feed that you can remember because sometimes we're not going to remember. My easy tip is like an elastic. I would always put it on my wrist for which one baby A was feeding on. Jessielee Sittig: I've seen that, that's so smart. Like a quick visual. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah, yeah. Yes, yeah. And then with pumping too, for moms who are exclusively pumping, flange sizing, flange sizing, flange sizing. It is like truly night and day. I have moms come to me as late as like eight, nine months postpartum who've been pumping with the wrong flange the entire time and we change them and their milk supply goes up like immediately it goes up. So. Jessielee Sittig: Mm-hmm. ⁓ It's crazy that what comes with the pump is huge and not typical. So I think when I was pumping in the hospital, I just, didn't have anything. I really didn't pump with my daughter. I joke that I like quote unquote pumped for fun, maybe three times to like try it. And then with ⁓ the boys, I like, this hurts. And I didn't know anything. I didn't even know what a flange size was. So I was like learning this and how to measure it. And I had to get an insert and then it was wild. Once I got the inserts, I was like, well, that's extremely more comfortable. And my milk production skyrocketed. So it was all really beneficial to make sure that I was doing that. And you can just get everything on Amazon. Like it had the little like flange size where you could measure, you know, your nipple size and get the insert and. That was all really helpful. But I had a lactation consultant guide me through all of that because I didn't even know where to start. Like I didn't know there was a flange insert. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah. And so it's funny, flange sizing, the research has like very recently been updated and I am willing to bet that even most lactation consultants aren't flange sizing correctly. I have never ever, ever had a mom using the right size even when they've seen a lactation consultant. So current best practice like the sizing, like using the ruler you talked about is great for getting us kind of into the ballpark of what flange sizing Jessielee Sittig: Hmm. Wow! Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): we want to use, but your measurement, especially using those circle rulers, your measurement doesn't almost always doesn't equal what flange size we're using. The, ⁓ I know. Jessielee Sittig: That's so confusing! Help! Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): It is and moms aren't meant to like figure out your flange size on your own like ideally We're doing it in person because there's not only the flange size, but there's the flange shape So, you know, you'll see on amazon. There's like a classic flange Which is more triangular shaped and most moms don't have triangular breast anatomy Especially when you're postpartum with twins you tend to have more rounded breast anatomy So for our more rounded flanges, we have the pano flange. We have crater flange. There's a new one called Jessielee Sittig: Hmm. Mm-hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): saucer flange. Like, so there's all these different shapes and sizes. Jessielee Sittig: You're blowing my mind. literally have never, I've never heard of any of these things and I pumped exclusively for seven months. So. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yes, yes. ⁓ And you mentioned inserts, so I don't recommend using inserts unless we're using a wearable pump. But if you're using like a traditional, like a spectra or one of those like traditional primary pumps, we want to size you in your correct hard plastic flange. let's say ⁓ inserts can be a great way in the meantime while we're waiting for a flange to come in. ⁓ even I find with the inserts, you're usually a few millimeters smaller and a hard plastic flange than you are when you're using an insert. Jessielee Sittig: Okay. Okay. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): But the best... Jessielee Sittig: Shoot! Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): I know, I know and every time I talk to a mom or do a consult or even you know on other podcasts everyone's like what and you're not supposed to know this information like you know it's not for moms to figure out that's why you have IBCLCs and you want one who is flange fits certified so I did a course through babies and common so if there's any other lactational professionals out there babies and common Jeanette from Jessielee Sittig: Mm, okay. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Her course was literally life-changing for my practice and the families that I serve. But yeah, when we're flange sizing, so we want to measure the nipple tip, not the base. So we measure the tip and that gets us in the ballpark. honestly, the... Yeah. ⁓ Jessielee Sittig: Okay. I did that wrong, for sure. I'm like, man, I wish that I would have, I wish all the things I could have done differently, you know? It's just making me giggle like, wow, I. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah. And it's hard. We don't know what we don't know. I was using a 24 flange and I'm probably like an 11 or a 10. Jessielee Sittig: Sure. ⁓ my gosh. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yes, the average in my practice is honestly like a 14 millimeter and I'll have moms that they're like, oh yeah, I measured myself. I'm a 19 and they end up being like a 12. And so yeah, the old flange, the old flange sizing, like when I gave birth to my twins, they would say, you don't want the nipple touching the tunnel, like the flange tunnel you want. The nipple cannot touch the tunnel. Well, what happens when that is when the nipple is not touching the tunnel wall, you're surrounding areola Jessielee Sittig: That's wild. Mm-hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): of tissue is being pulled in to the flange tunnel as well, which is creating like soft tissue damage. You're not draining the breast effectively. Like I had a massive oversupply with my twins, like massive once I started like making milk and whatever we had a bit of a delay there. I had a massive oversupply like I don't even want to say because it ⁓ really like just super uncommon and I don't want anyone to like hear numbers and Jessielee Sittig: Mm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): think anything but I would pump and I would still feel massive amounts of milk left behind. Like I was never draining when I pumped ever. Even with my singleton I was teaching nursing like skills labs at the college and I had to like pump with her sometimes she wouldn't take a bottle she wouldn't whatever but I pumped just in case and I would I always felt milk left behind I had clogged ducts and mastitis so many times with my boys so yeah ⁓ just it's it's wild but when you're using the incorrect flange size you're very likely to have ⁓ lower milk supply clogged ducts mastitis tissue damage Jessielee Sittig: Mm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): to your nipple or areola. So the way that we want to see that it's the correct flange size, number one, no pain. You should not have pain at all. If you have pain, it's automatically not the right size for you. Number two, the nipple should be rubbing on the flange wall. Like the nipple should be the only thing entering the flange tunnel, nothing else. And ⁓ you have strong sprays of milk. They say within the first two minutes, but Jessielee Sittig: Hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Truly it should be under 30 seconds that you're seeing strong sprays of milk coming. You know, I had a mom that I did a consult with. She was eight months postpartum. This was a few months ago. And she was like, ⁓ yeah, sometimes it takes me like eight to 10 minutes for me to start seeing sprays of milk. And we changed her flange size and she was like, Shelly, she was like, I got sprays in 10 seconds. She's like, what the heck? Like. Jessielee Sittig: ⁓ wow. ⁓ my gosh. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): This poor mom was using the wrong size for eight months and she was like so upset because she was like, I saw four in-person lactation consultants and all of them. was like, I feel like my pumping could be better. I feel like my pumping could be better. And they were all like, ⁓ no, you're fine. You're fine. Some moms it just takes a long time. And yeah. So yeah, we want like no pain, strong sprays of milk, no like areola tissue should be entering the flange tunnel. should just be your nipple rubbing on the tunnel wall. Sounds uncomfortable. Jessielee Sittig: Ugh. Mm. That's so frustrating. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): So I recommend using, I like liquid coconut oil if you're not allergic and spraying that into your flange tunnel for some lubrication. Or you can use pumping spray, like whatever you want, just lubricate that tunnel. But yeah, the way that we see what the best flange size is for you is by switching out multiple ones in person to see which one you respond best to. Now when I practice virtually, I'm pretty good at it. Like I can almost eyeball when I see a mom on camera and say, yeah, you're probably going to be this. And I'm almost always right just because I've done so many in-person ones that I'm now really good at doing it virtually as well. So I always tell moms like, don't try to DIY. flange sizing like please see somebody who knows how to do it properly and yeah like I used to have like a flange sizing ruler that I like had as on as a highlight on Instagram and I removed it because I'm like no this this is not accurate anymore and you know moms aren't supposed to be able to figure out your own size it's it can take you know a lot of trial and error and there's like nuance and you're like very freshly postpartum so it's not for you Jessielee Sittig: Hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): to try to figure out on your own. So please reach out for help if you think you're using the wrong flange size, because you probably are, but we can get you in the right one and it will make pumping so much more enjoyable and quicker. Like I had moms who were pumping for 45 minutes to empty and now they pump like 20 minutes. Jessielee Sittig: That's great. Well, and it's crazy that you brought up like if you have the wrong flange size that it can lead to clogged ducts. So with my daughter, I did have mastitis. With the boys, I never had mastitis, but I had clogged ducts probably weekly. It was like so often where I'm like, ⁓ here it is again. And it was so painful and uncomfortable. And I'm thankful it didn't turn into mastitis, but it was, yeah, they're really painful. So like, ⁓ man, I had had the wrong flange size for whole time I pumped. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah, honestly, like I use the wrong flange size the whole time. I pumped for my, you know, my twins and my singleton and so many moms I see it like, and I always say to like just a PSA, if you don't feel that something's right or if you think something could be optimized or you're wondering, like just reach out for help. I have so many moms who are like, yeah. followed you for months and you know, I just kept going back and forth. didn't know if it was a big deal and they reach out. I have so many moms that like four or five, six, seven, eight, nine months reaching out. They're all using the wrong flange size. you know, we make their pumping more efficient. We can change up their schedule a bit to just help overall make breastfeeding and pumping more manageable for the family. yeah, like you're not meant to figure it out alone. So don't ever hesitate to reach out. Like I'm happy to help you. you if I can't help you in that you have an insurance and you want to use that and I don't take that, I'm going to send you to somebody who can because you deserve the best support. Being a twin mom is hard. It is hard. So you deserve support no matter where it comes from to help make things more manageable for you. Jessielee Sittig: ⁓ I love that. Well, and earlier you brought up that like, there shouldn't be any pain pumping. And if you have pain, then you need to try a different flange size. So I have a question about that in regard to breastfeeding for like a new mom with maybe, you know, like sore nipples what is normal and what isn't because I had extreme pain with my daughter. And then once her tongue ties were released, so she had tongue ties and also ⁓ was born with a swollen salivary gland under her tongue. Have you ever seen that? Like it looked like a bubble. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): One's like a long time ago, I saw that, but it's not common. Jessielee Sittig: Yeah, had never like, sure, I'd never heard of that. Even the pediatrician was like, ⁓ you know, like he had never seen that before. So they did end up releasing that as well as her tongue ties. And that made a world of difference. So yeah, in regard to pain, what's normal for like a new breastfeeding mom. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): I love that question so much. Okay, so I say pain is never normal. If you're having pain, that's like a red flag that something can be changed, improved, and it's not always as, you know, traumatic as needing a tongue tie release. Sometimes it's as simple as a positional change. And like I said, with twins specifically, I find a lot of times they just have a lot of tension and we have a saying in lactation, tight hips, tight lips. feeding is like a whole body thing. And if there's tension within the body, it's going to make them melt tight too. And I remember my twins, like I said, their first adjustment, they were four days old. Before that, it was like trying to breastfeed a snapping turtle. was just like, it would clamp down and I was like, ⁓ this is awful. Jessielee Sittig: Hmm Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): And after their first adjustment it got a lot better. like so and you know my boys Both had ⁓ ties ⁓ the buccal ties So tongue lip buccal and I asked like four different lactation consultants. They're like no they're fine They're fine, and my pain did go away, and I had a great milk supply they fed well they grew well, but You know now down the road. It's like ⁓ great. We need like Jessielee Sittig: Hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): palate expanders because their tongue ties weren't released because nobody knew that they had them. So if there's pain, I always say that's just like a red flag we wanted addressed. I've seen, which is discouraging, I've seen other lactation accounts. One of them was like, ⁓ you can have pain up to a four out of 10, but once it reaches five, then you call. I'm like, what? Like, first of all, pain is kind of subjective. Like your four out of 10 could be my eight out of 10. ⁓ Jessielee Sittig: Hmm. Sure. you compare pain Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah. So if you have pain, like I say, that's an automatic reach out. Don't wait for it to disappear. Pain is not normal for X number of days, weeks or months, because that again, I have moms come to me at like five months. like, I thought the pain would improve by now, but it hasn't. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, you've been white knuckling breastfeeding for five months with twins. You know, so sometimes they'll say moms have sensitivity. So if you are, you know, if you're a mom who tends to have more sensitive breasts or nipples to begin Jessielee Sittig: Mm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): with, might feel sensitivity. But if you're having pain again, just reach out any damage like cracks, bleeding, like really, really red or purple nipples, like anything where it's just not looking normal. That's automatic. Like, please reach out because if there's tissue damage, if there's cracks, if there's bleeding, something is going on and we need to fix that. And you can't just like power your way through it because it's not like Jessielee Sittig: Mm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): likely to improve on its own. And the longer we wait, sometimes the harder it can be to fix it. And the more rundown mom feels, like if you can imagine, like you said, it hurt. And if you had gone months with it hurting, you're not as resilient when you seek help to be able to continue on with maybe doing some of the work that might be needed to help make the situation better. Jessielee Sittig: Mm. Mm And do you feel like you see tongue ties more now than ever? Or do you feel like there's just more awareness about them? Because I feel like when I when my daughter was going through that, my mom and maybe even my mother in law were like, what the heck is a tongue tie? Like it wasn't like a something that was talked about when ⁓ when I was younger. ⁓ So I'm sure if that's Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah. Jessielee Sittig: a newer thing or that it's just being diagnosed more like people know what it is. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah, that's a great question. think awareness is just increasing. Like my husband, for example, has a severe tongue tie. And I'm always, I keep telling him, like, I brought our boys to be seen by a pediatric dentist. And I'm like, so we're going to do palate expansion for them first and then see if their ties need to be released. And I was like, do you do adults? Cause like my husband, he could use some help. And I, yeah. And it's like, and I, Jessielee Sittig: That's so funny. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): I I can see that I have a tongue tie. ⁓ So it's like, feel like, you know, and my cousins, for example, I was, I can tell, this sounds crazy. I did this really great course about tongue ties and oral habituation. ⁓ I can tell by the way somebody walks if they have a tongue tie sometimes. Like, ⁓ Jessielee Sittig: Hmm. really like well like you were saying tightness what is it tightness in the hips tightness in the in the lips Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah, tight hips, tight lips. But like my one cousin, he walks on his tiptoes and one time I asked him like, can you open your mouth and stick your tongue up to the roof? Because I was just curious. I'm like lo and behold, he has a tongue tie. I, you know, because it's yeah. So I and again, like and I remember when he was a baby and like my aunt was like, ⁓ yeah, breastfeeding is not working. And they pivoted to formula, which like it's awesome that we have that option for another way to feed our babies. But yeah, it's just like it was not a thing in our Jessielee Sittig: Wow. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): in our time that I know of, 20, 30 years ago, awareness has definitely increased. Like with my boys, I wasn't an IBCLC yet, but I was like, I swear they have ties. it was, so ties can be present, is it affecting the function, like the way that the tongue moves and the mouth and feeding and like... Jessielee Sittig: Mm-hmm. Mm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): But the argument could be made like, so my boys were gaining well, but I had like a gigantic milk supply, but functionally other things were challenging for them. Like one of them had really hard time when he started solids, which was probably related to that. And now there's some speech concerns that is related to tongue ties. But things like doing chiropractic and stuff really helped with their function, but is their function optimal? ⁓ but ⁓ gotten them through to this point. ⁓ yeah, that's a great question. Jessielee Sittig: Hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): So I always say to like not all IBCLCs are trained in oral function So if somebody just looks at your baby's mouth and they're like, ⁓ you have a tongue tie It's like no we want to assess the function like what's the tongue doing? so Again, that's where you get second opinions because not everybody has this training It's not required to become an IBCLC So it's like extra courses that you have to take and I'll be honest tongue navigating tongue ties is not my favorite thing. I've learned Jessielee Sittig: Hmm. Mm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): about it because that's how I can support twin families better. But some of my more complex cases where I'm like, this is out of my wheelhouse, I will refer because I'm like, I'm not going to like stumble my way through and affect this family's feeding journey. So I'll refer to somebody who I know has more expertise than I do in guiding families through this. you know, I always say second and third opinions don't hurt if if you're being told one thing, but your mom instinct is telling you there's something else going on like. Jessielee Sittig: Mm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): always follow your guide. Jessielee Sittig: That's how it felt for me. Like I was a first time mom with my daughter and I was in so much pain. Like I would tell my husband, like I would cry every time that we would breastfeed. I would start to feel panicky because I knew it was going to hurt. And I think I had mentioned to him something like this, ⁓ pain is almost the same level as pain with my labor contractions. And he was like, that doesn't seem normal. ⁓ And our pediatrician kept kind of like putting it off, like, ⁓ her tongue ties really shouldn't be affecting breastfeeding. And then we finally did, like we hired a lactation consultant. She referred us to like tongue tie specialists, which is where she had it released. And I'm so glad that I did get a second opinion because I was like, my level of pain isn't normal. And maybe I was downplaying that in the office because I wanted to seem, I don't know, strong or something. but I'm glad that we got a second opinion and got everything fixed because then we were able to breastfeed for 15 months. And I also love that you have been bringing up tension. So this isn't in relation to ⁓ breastfeeding, you know, my twins were very tight and had torticollis, like the tight neck. ⁓ And my Wyatt specifically, baby A had it pretty bad. where in photos, even his head was like just kind of tweaked. So we did have a chiropractor that helped a lot, enough for my son Waylon to not need a cranial helmet, but my son Wyatt did. And one thing that I did that did not help them was the way that I placed them in their bassinet. They always slept next to each other in their bassinet and I placed them in alphabetical order. So my son's name are Waylon and Wyatt. So W-A went on the left, W-Y went on the right. And because Wyatt already had a strong preference to turn that way, he just wanted to look at his brother. So in doing that with my little system of not mixing them up or knowing who I fed first or what diaper I changed, I actually made his torticollis worse where he did develop, what's the word of where they have like a flat? Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): ⁓ Plagiocephaly ⁓ Jessielee Sittig: Thank you. I'm always like, ⁓ I'm going to stumble on that. He developed that and he did need a cranial helmet, even with physical therapy and going to the chiropractor. So I always tell not that moms would do this, but it was like kind of a survival tactic for me. Like don't put them in the same spot. So when you brought that up of doing that and making sure you're switching sides, I was like, yes, I know from personal experience that it doesn't, it's not good for anyone's neck or head development if they're always in the same spot. especially if they already have if they're twins and they already have like a side turning preference. So yes. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah, no, that's great. And thank you for sharing that. honestly, like you said, like... We don't know what we don't know and there's so much as moms that we just don't know. And especially when we have twins, like I always say, I wish I could go back to day one and do it all again, because like I did not know so much and I would do so many things differently than I, than I did because you just don't know. Like, and so that's again why I find like support so helpful because like, you know, I had visits with moms where they were assigning breasts right from the get-go and I was able to tell them, yeah, I probably wouldn't do that for these reasons. And they were able Jessielee Sittig: Mm-hmm. Mm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): to make like an informed decision if they wanted to continue assigning breasts or start switching and you know even with like putting your babies down in cribs like you said or a bassinet like that I knew that from public health we'd always teach like put them at the head one time and the foot the other time because they're gonna always want to like turn towards the light source or the door or whatever. ⁓ But you just you don't know and it's and it's great that we have like you know chiropractors who specialize in babies and pts and and helmets when they're needed because like sometimes those things are needed whether you've done all the right things or not. You know my daughter had severe torticollis and she Jessielee Sittig: Mmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): was by herself in there. You know and I feel so bad looking at her baby pictures because she was like her ear was like touching her shoulder and again she saw a chiropractor right from the get-go but she was also born during like the height of COVID and everything was closed. Our chiropractor, we've just been seeing him for like decade at that point, he would come to our house and adjust her and thank God he did because I know what would have happened her. So that's why I always say like, you know, ⁓ it never hurts to ⁓ seek out or help or ⁓ asking a professional their opinion. Jessielee Sittig: Mm Well, this has been so helpful. I feel like you are just a wealth of knowledge and I love your page. Your page is like the perfect mixture of informative you give twin facts and it's like funny, which I feel like we all need some comic relief as twin moms like don't you do like fun funny Fridays and they're just like cutest silliest videos that just kind of make you giggle about twin mom life. So I love your page ⁓ and ⁓ Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yes. Jessielee Sittig: This has been so informative and I wish that I would have known this stuff a few years ago. Like you said, if only we could go back and with the knowledge that we have now. So, well, is there anything that we missed or that we didn't get a chance to talk about? Cause Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Okay, I'll say one more thing, because I could seriously go all day. Okay, so when we find out we're having twins, a lot of the focus can sometimes be on the stuff, right? Like, what do we need to survive? And it can be hard, I find, in social media and kind of this influencer culture. Like, you'll see like eight different pumps recommended and like a bunch of different bottles and whatever. Jessielee Sittig: Mm-hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): So yeah, I say like, again, this is something you can reach out to an IBCLC for, especially if you're planning to breastfeed and bottle feed, or breastfeed and pumping, but even families who are planning like exclusive formula feeding, bottle feeding, like IBCLCs, still support that as well. And we can tell you what bottles to get that are best for like oral development. I just, I have a hard time kind of on Instagram sometimes, cause I'll see like, know, twin mom influencers promoting certain pumps or Jessielee Sittig: Mm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): that I'm like, would never ever tell anybody to use that. And I understand because, you know, they're just moms trying to support their families too and they don't know any different. Like a pump company approaches them with a, you know, a sponsored post or a bottle company and they're like, yeah. And like, you know, again, so no hate towards them because number one, they probably don't know that, you know, those aren't the best pump choices or bottle choices. And number two, they're just moms trying to support their families, you know. So I totally get Jessielee Sittig: Mm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): get it, like if you ever, you know, I think prenatal consults with like an IBCLC are so important because like I look through my clients registries and I'm like, no, we want to switch this for this or like, yeah, that's like a good pump, but like you're probably better to start with this and then like move on to that later. Like I find that wearables are like all the rage right now, but I really don't recommend using them for the first 12 weeks if possible until your milk supply is regulated because for the vast majority of moms a wearable pump. Jessielee Sittig: Hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): pump that just sits in your bra. The flange motor is all one piece in your bra. For the vast majority of moms, it's not going to empty your breast effectively and it can lead to low milk supply because if we're leaving milk behind, we're telling our body we don't need all this milk. So I do have, again, a few unicorns who exclusively pump with wearable pumps and have so for a long time and they're doing fine. But for the vast majority of moms, that doesn't ⁓ So always start with like a traditional pump and then you can move on to a wearable once your milk supply is established. There's only like a few bottles on the market that I would recommend for most families and a lot of them are not great for oral development and a lot of the gadgets we honestly don't need like ⁓ there's you ⁓ there we can make an argument for every ⁓ almost product but a lot of them we don't need and I just find it hard like it's different than when I had my twins so they just recently turned eight so When I had them there wasn't as much like buying pressure I feel like on social media. It wasn't there were some influencers and some educators but it's nothing like it is today. So I always tell moms like if you're not sure about something like send me a DM I'll give you an honest opinion if it's like a very specific like breastfeeding or pumping question will likely have to do a consult but if you're like, oh is this bottle like is this a decent bottle? I can usually give you a yes or no answer. Jessielee Sittig: Mm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): yeah, I just find like there's so much pressure to like buy different things and I've again I ⁓ a consult with mom who's seven months postpartum. She had like six different pumps trying to increase her milk supply. She bought six ⁓ and I'm like ⁓ Jessielee Sittig: ⁓ my gosh. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): I'm like, we just need to fix your flange size. And she bought all these wearable pumps. like, ⁓ And just my heart hurts for her, because I've been there when you're just in the thick of it and you're looking for an easy solution. So I always say it's best to invest in a professional instead of all the Amazon links you see out there. Most of the time, you don't need it. Jessielee Sittig: Mm-hmm. I think that's such a good reminder that as a lactation consultant, not only can you help people breastfeed, but you can help people pump and pick the right bottles. I think that's really important to say. And I will say I tried a wearable pump and the benefits to me weren't worth it. Like I didn't really get increased mobility like I thought I would. You can't bend over because everything spills out. I thought they were significantly more messy to like transfer milk and I lost a lot of milk that way. So I did buy a wearable pump thinking, ⁓ this will make my life easier. And it really didn't. So just from that side of it, like it wasn't, it wasn't all that it was cracked up to be like I thought it was going to be, if that makes sense. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah. Yeah, and I've seen, again, like I'll see kind of like reels that are usually sponsored and it's like a mom is like, you know, skipping through town with her wearables on. Yeah, this would have like actually spilled in real life, like, you know, ⁓ and wearables can be great. They can be a really great tool. But again, like so many moms need support with them and like your flange size will be different with a hard plastic flange than it is for your wearable. So like that's another fun thing we got to troubleshoot. And, there's a good friend of mine, she's an Jessielee Sittig: Yes. Hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Her name is the breastfeeding mama on Instagram. She just had her fourth and she has all singleton. She had her fourth baby. She's trying out a ton of wearable pumps and she'll just like tell me and it's it's so individualized to so many moms. Like I have my wearables in my head that I'm like, okay, these work for most moms, but for some moms they just don't and some wearables that don't work for a lot of moms work really well for some moms and that's what this friend is finding. Like the ones that are typically most popular in our practice are Jessielee Sittig: Mm-hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): practices, both of ours individually, are not working for her personally. But the ones that typically don't work is working well for her. So that's why I always say it's you know, it's so good to work with a professional who like we do this every day I can tell by like you tell me what your goals are, what your lifestyle is like, like we can help you to pick things to just again, make things more manageable. And like I said, we work with families who ⁓ if you know from day you're exclusively formula Jessielee Sittig: Hmm, how interesting. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): feeding. Like we work on like there's still certain bottles that you want to use to help with like oral development. We still want to do paste bottle feeding no matter what's in the bottle whether it's breast milk or formula we want to do paste bottle feeding. We can teach you how to tandem bottle feed for moms who are you know either pumping or formula feeding and just you know all the other like twin tips I like to throw in there and like making sure mom is taking care of herself and feeling herself. And you know, you've mentioned Allegra before, but like another shout out, like guys follow Allegra, aloha.nutrition on Instagram. If you are pregnant or postpartum with twins, like I always tell her, like, I needed you when I had my twins. I was so under fueling myself. And I like, it's crazy looking back. I'm like, it truly, Jessielee Sittig: Mm-hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Grace of God alone I survived because I was eating twice a day for four or five years and I always had muscle cramps and brain fog. And then Allegra introduced, I was introduced to by her should say, mineral mocktails. I drank three a day and if I don't I feel it. I'm like, ⁓ my gosh. And mind you, I have other health issues going on so that won't be the case for every mom. Jessielee Sittig: Mm. Mm-hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): She's fantastic for like ⁓ to fuel yourself as a mom especially with twins like during pregnancy ⁓ breastfeeding and pumping and postpartum like our Nutrient requirements energy requirements ⁓ vitamins minerals are much higher than Jessielee Sittig: Mm-hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): than like when we're not pregnant or if we were having a single 10 and there's really not much research when it comes to like twin pregnancy, twin postpartum breastfeeding twins. there's not much like published research, but there are practitioners like Allegra who, you know, we see in clinical practice, like what these moms need. And so many twin moms were like under fueling ourselves and you know, we're drinking gallons of water, but no electrolytes. Like I was drinking so much water and I still felt thirsty, my muscles were crampy and achy all the time. Started doing like mineral mocktails. I'm like, ⁓ my gosh, feel like a million bucks. so there's just, so yeah, follow Allegra if you're not already. She's like great. And I would have probably been in much better shape had I been fueling myself properly. Jessielee Sittig: Hmm. her episode was so great, just and so is her page, but just like talking about how we are severely under eating, especially pregnant and then making milk takes a lot of calories. So I love that she did that. And in her episode, she provided so many amazing examples of like snack ideas, meal ideas. I was like, taking notes, like I'm integrating all of this. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jessielee Sittig: into my own life and family, where actually one of her things was like she loves a quick stir fry like a one pan stir fry. I'm like, I'm making that tonight. And I had been in a dinner rut. And then we had her episode. And I'm like, yeah, I have all of these awesome dinner ideas. But it's also ⁓ you have to yourself so that you can provide for your family. And if you aren't feeling good, or you're undernourishing your body, that's going to show up in so many ways like you were saying like, the brain frog and the fatigue and you know, all of that is so real. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah, it is and like, yeah. Like I said, if I could go back, would do so many things differently. And I like ended up crashing for those who followed me on Instagram for a while. You'll know I was referred to it as my like mast cell crash of twenty twenty four. I literally crashed and I was in the hospital on my husband's birthday and my daughter's birthday for the whole weekend with, you know, all these symptoms. Ended up getting diagnosed with mast cell activation syndrome. That's a whole other story. But like, I'm sure, you know, I would have been diagnosed with it eventually. But like I crashed so hard because for so long I was Jessielee Sittig: Mmm. Aww. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): under eating, under sleeping, even when my kids started sleeping, I'm like, okay, now I'm just gonna stay up and work till two o'clock in the morning every day. you know, and I just feel like, you know, as twin moms, like I said, having twins humbled me so hard and like having this like health crash has humbled me so hard. And I'm like, we just need to give ourselves so much more grace because like being a mom is hard and having twins is hard. It's the best thing in the world. It is like the biggest blessing, but it's challenging too. And like we deserve to get more sleep when we can. Jessielee Sittig: Hmm. same. Mm. Mm-hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): and we deserve to eat nourishing foods and not eat half a leftover crusty sandwich at 9.30 and call it a day. It's hard. So yeah, again, like I said, reaching out to other twin moms or professionals, we are here to help. those of us who have lived it professionally, like myself, Allegra, we've lived it personally and we work with a lot of twin moms professionally. Jessielee Sittig: Mm-hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): and we have lots of tips, we've worked with lots of families, we've gathered lots of ideas and we can help you and you know, like I said, it's challenging but it's truly the best. Like I just feel so blessed to have twins and I didn't always feel that way. Sometimes it was super hard and like I cried a lot and I was like, ⁓ my gosh, like God, why did you think I can handle this? Because I clearly can't. And you know, it's, I sometimes feel that way still but like just having twins is truly the best. They are so fun even now. Jessielee Sittig: Hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Like I said, my guys just turned eight and I watched them and I'm just like in awe of them Sometimes I want to cry watching them. I'm like you guys are so cute like Like you're so fun and like when they're not fighting like they're just adorable like they're walking down the street the other day talking and like I'm seriously tearing up if you guys can watch this like it's truly the best it's hard, but it's amazing like I'm just whenever I find out someone's having twins I'm truly so genuinely excited for them because I'm like you have like such a fun ride ahead of you and just keep getting better Jessielee Sittig: Yes. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): every like every year they just keep getting more and more fun and yeah they're awesome. Jessielee Sittig: So your boys are eight. So what do you think has been the hardest age and your favorite age so far? ⁓ Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yes. Honestly I like, it's so hard to say. The hardest was newborn for sure for me. I, I don't, I see all the time on social media and I filmed a reel and I've never posted it because I was telling Jesse earlier, I have huge imposter syndrome and like perfectionist to like the Nth degree. So I film stuff and never post it. I see stuff on Instagram, I see stuff on Instagram all the time where it's like, if you think newborn twins are hard, wait till you have toddler twins or you think toddlers twins are hard, wait till you have school age or like teenage. Jessielee Sittig: Post it, post it. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): teenagers or whatever. And I just think like it's all so dependent. Like I had colicky newborns. I didn't sleep. It was super hard. I was by myself a lot. That was hard. My twins are active and I know a lot of people say, ⁓ yeah, my kids are busy. Like I'm telling you guys, like when people see my kids in real life, they're like, ⁓ gosh, they truly don't stop. I'm like, yeah, I know. Jessielee Sittig: Mm. I feel like we could have a whole podcast episode about like having boy twins. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah, it's another world. Like they are just, they are busy. And like I said, they are just newly turned eight. They're outside. We prioritize outside time. We homeschool like they're outside spring to fall, six, eight, sometimes 10 hours a day. They don't fall asleep till like 1030 at night. Like they're in their beds and they're like moving and grooving and like, mama, I have an idea about this. Can I tell you my idea? I'm like, shhh, shhh. It's time for bed. My brain needs a rest. But so, you know, as toddlers, they were really busy. Jessielee Sittig: That's amazing. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): and I had a colicky newborn girl but I'm like they went to bed at night and they slept for the most part so like yeah like the daytime was busy with toddlers but I knew I was kind of getting that like break if you will most nights and we've had some really hard medical stuff that I don't really share on Instagram but all my kids have like an autoimmune thing I have Mass Cell Activation Syndrome and that has made years that should have been easier harder but overall newborn twins was the hardest thing for me I was Jessielee Sittig: Mm-hmm. Hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Barely sleeping, I said, triple feeding around the clock. And my babies, did, my husband always jokes, we don't make happy babies, they were not. We were very high needs, lots of crying, like for hours and hours a day. I lived on that big bouncy exercise ball, just bouncing them and shushing them and patting their butts. So again, like I've had higher needs kids, so I always just say like find the good in whatever stage you're in, because there's always things that are gonna be hard. Jessielee Sittig: Hmm... Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): always and it may not be your kids but it could be something externally like job stress or stuff in your extended family. So I always say find the good and latch on to that because you know as quickly as things come they go as well and I really try even when things are really hard to not like wish away a season because you know it was so hard when they were newborns and then I look at their pictures on my Google photos every night we always look at our like you know show us like seven years ago six years ago and Jessielee Sittig: Yes, yeah. Hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): every night I want to cry when I'm watching it because I'm like, ⁓ my gosh, it went so fast. You were so little and now you're big. Like one of my twins, he's really tall. He's like up to my shoulder and he just turned eight. I know and I'm like, you guys are so big. It's going so fast. So yeah, I have every stage has had its challenges where I like totally don't feel equipped to be a mom whatsoever. And but it's also had things that are just so amazing where I'm like, ⁓ my gosh, I don't deserve you guys. You're the best. Jessielee Sittig: ⁓ my gosh. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): So, yeah, look for the good in each season because there's always going to be something that's challenging. Jessielee Sittig: I love that. And I feel like, it's hard for me to answer that question because my boys are almost three. So we're still like in the toddler phase, but I will say ⁓ twins were hard. Like you're so sleep deprived and it's just, don't get me wrong. Twin toddlers is challenging like tantrums and learning boundaries and things like that, but they're so cute. ⁓ Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah. Jessielee Sittig: Like when they fight, they fight hard. And when they're cute, it is like next level, adorable to watch. Like you were saying, I get teary eyed often, just like looking at their bond and they're super into holding hands right now, which is the cutest thing in the whole world. So ⁓ like when you're in the newborn trenches, you're not getting a lot of ⁓ positive feedback from a newborn. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Jessielee Sittig: So I feel like that's why I've always thrived more in the toddler phase. Like though it's hard, tantrums are challenging. Like you're having good times and bad times. I'm not saying all newborns are bad. I'm just saying it's harder to get that positive feedback until they start smiling and like that takes a lot longer and you can handle way more like once you've slept. I... Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): I Yeah. Jessielee Sittig: I feel you on all of that. And I feel like you've given so many amazing like tidbits and tips, but if you could have a heart to heart with a twin mom, what would you tell her? Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Um, yeah, probably just like echoing what I just said, like having twins is truly the best and people think I'm crazy. If I could go back to day one and do it all again, I would in a heartbeat when someone tells me they're having twins. I'm truly so excited for them. but I also don't sugar coat it. It's like, yeah, it's challenging and, there are going to be things that are hard, but we always want to look for like, what's good too. Like even when they were newborn newborns, I love just being skin to skin with them and snuggling them in like the Jessielee Sittig: Mm, yeah. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): five minute break I had before the next feed, before someone started crying. And I would like just take like little pictures of like, you know, their funny little tufts of hair or what their ears look like. Cause I'm like, I just want to remember how like cute and little you were. And yeah. And like you said, the toddler years, like our, our twins were not easy toddlers, like very strong willed, feisty. I call my twin a like, this is a big thing in the twin world. It's like, which one is it twin a or twin B that's like, Jessielee Sittig: Mm. Yes. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): your feisty twin. Mine is my twin A. I still call him feisty firecracker. ⁓ They were not easy toddlers at all and they would always gang up. One of them would go on all fours and the other would stand on his back to try and unlock baby gates or climb over. They were next level. But they were so funny and I learned so much about trucks that I never would have known or cared to learn. Jessielee Sittig: Okay. you ⁓ my gosh. You Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): And to this day, I get excited if I see an excavator and they're kind of getting to the age where they don't care as much, they still think they're cool, but they used to love it. it's like, ⁓ so anyways, there will always be something hard, acknowledge the hard, because yeah, it is hard and it's a struggle, but don't dwell on the hard. Focus on the good and make other twin mom friends, because it's just like, we get it, we get it. Have twin mom friends who, their twins are older than you and they Jessielee Sittig: Aww. Hmm. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): can encourage you and tell you it's going to get better. Have twin mom friends who are in the same stage as you so you guys can commiserate together. And then have twin mom friends who are behind you where you're the one who's encouraging and telling them like, it gets better. Because yeah, it's just like it's a club that you don't get unless you have twins. So. Jessielee Sittig: Mm. Yes. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): I'm like so grateful for like my twin mom friends that I had and have to this day and so thankful for all the twin moms I get to connect with through Instagram or work and it's just yeah, it's truly the best. I think it's the biggest blessing ever and that's also why I have Funny Friday because I always say like if I don't laugh sometimes I'm gonna cry so let's just laugh instead and make a funny reel because you know what we could all use a laugh. Jessielee Sittig: I love all of that. And on like the funny real note, I saw this reel recently. It was like one thing I didn't realize about being a boy mom is that excavators are everywhere. Like that is so true and hilarious. And I love all of that. think twin community is so important and finding twin mom friends. Like that's been a huge thing. In addition to the podcast, I've been trying to set up like in-person community play dates for twin moms because Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah, they are. Jessielee Sittig: I just think that is so important. Like I love all of my Singleton mom friends. They are fantastic, but I will bring up a situation and they're like, ⁓ like that's pretty twin specific. So it is nice to be able to talk to other twin moms who, like you said, who just get it and understand what we're going through on like a very personal, similar level that only like twin moms can fully understand. So. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, and it's just like, and even like in-person meetups are amazing. But if you can't meet somebody in person, like ⁓ I had my twins, there was a group chat of three of us who had our twins within a couple months of each other and we ⁓ all the time. We all lived in the same city, but we all had high needs kids and we couldn't meet up without them just all crying the whole time and it wasn't enjoyable for anyone. So we had our group chat. ⁓ best twin mom friend, I met in a Facebook group. ⁓ lives in Minnesota. Her Instagram is same same kids for anybody out there. She does ⁓ like Poshmark for matching and coordinating twin clothes. So you can buy pre-loved twin clothes. Yeah, ⁓ best. ⁓ Jessielee Sittig: Cool. to check that out. That's awesome. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah, so it's at same same kids. So like Poshmark for matching coordinating twin clothes. We met in a Facebook group and immediately like our twins were born a month apart. We both have twin boys and we were just like, okay. ⁓ like that ⁓ thing that quote from the movie Step Brothers. Like did we just become best friends? Yep. ⁓ like from that day we've been like each other's like ride or die. So like if you can't find somebody in person, like there's so many amazing twin moms online and like they're just such a big support. So yeah. Jessielee Sittig: Yes. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): connect with other twin moms because yeah we just get it and you know we might not always have the answers but at least we can kind of like relate and empathize and encourage each other along. Jessielee Sittig: Sure. Yeah, absolutely. And if someone wanted to connect with you, can you say your Instagram handle and other resources where they can find you? Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Yeah, so my Instagram is at TwinMomGuide. I'm TwinMomGuide on Facebook. I'm going to revive my TikTok if you're there and YouTube. My website is twinmomguide.com. If you go there in the next little bit, I do not have a coaching business. I just have a lack of time to change my website template. yeah, TwinMomGuide.com. And like I said, send me a DM anytime. I am happy to help. ⁓ And I always tell moms, if I don't reply 24 hours, it's because I got distracted, send me a reminder. It's not bothering me whatsoever. It's just the crazy balance of twin life and running a business and all the things. But yeah, thank you, Jessie, so much for having me. This has been so much fun. ⁓ And yeah, I'm just so thankful for you. And think your podcast is awesome. Jessielee Sittig: ⁓ well, thank you so much for coming on. That was so much fun. So much good information for twin moms who want to breastfeed or pump or just need resources or a little laugh. So thank you so much for coming on. really, really appreciate it. Shelly (Twin Mom Guide): Thank you. Thank you. Jessielee Sittig: Yay. Okay.