Figuring out how to feed bottles to two babies either simultaneously or separately can seem daunting. But, this is the reality of life for new twin parents who will be bottle feeding. As a bottle feeding mom to twin girls myself, below I am reviewing all my top tips for efficiently and effectively bottle feeding twins.
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How To Efficiently Prepare Bottles for Twins
Before we discuss how to feed bottles to twins, it’s also just as important to be able to prepare bottles quickly and safely for your two babies. We will look at how to prepare both formula and breastmilk bottles below.
Preparing Formula Bottles
If you will be feeding formula to your twin babies, I recommend going with one of two options. First up is preparing formula on demand. In this scenario you would have room temperature water ready, so you can make up a bottle as needed.
This is the option we ended up choosing in our house. We just found it faster and easier to have filtered, room temperature water prepped on the kitchen counter. We would use this water to then make bottles as needed for each of our babies.
You might also want to get a Baby Brezza for an even easier time prepping bottles of formula. With twins, this investment could definitely be worth it for even more efficiency.
The other option that I know other twin parents have preferred is to make all your formula for the day each morning. In this scenario, let’s say you know each baby drinks 7 bottles per day. When you get up in the morning, you make-up 14 formula bottles and put them in the fridge. Then, as each twin baby needs a bottle you can take it out of the fridge and warm it up (if necessary). See the breastmilk section below for how to quickly warm a bottle.
Here are some things to keep in mind when you decide which option from above will work best for you. As you can see from this helpful printable Formula Storage guide, formula is good in the fridge for 24 hours after making it. On the other hand, formula is only good for 2 hours at room temperature. And finally, once a baby starts drinking from a bottle, the formula lasts for 1 hour.
Preparing Breastmilk Bottles
If you are pumping for twins, you will have bottles of breastmilk for feeding your two babies. Sometimes these bottles will be fresh and can be given without refrigeration.
In other cases, the breastmilk will come from either the fridge or the freezer. If you have a bag of breastmilk from the freezer, you can fill a small shallow container with cold water and it will defrost pretty quickly (within about 1 minute). Once defrosted, you will want to pour the cold milk into a bottle.
Now, if you have the defrosted breastmilk or breastmilk bottle that was in the fridge, I recommend using a pint glass or something of similar size to warm the milk. Get water from your tap, with the water set to be as hot as possible.
Fill the container about one half to three quarters full, then put the bottle with cold breastmilk into the pint glass. Let it sit in there for about 30 seconds to 1 minute. Take the bottle out a few times and swirl the milk around to get the temperature uniform and mix the breastmilk. If both babies are eating, use two pint glasses and warm the bottles simultaneously.
The goal is to warm the breastmilk enough that your babies will drink it. It doesn’t have to be room temperature, just warm enough that your babies take the bottle. This will save you precious time. If you prefer a bottle warmer you can opt for that too. However, I found the warm water method to be much faster.
Related: You might find this printable Breastmilk Storage Guide useful!
Tips for Feeding Bottles to Newborn Twins
When your twins are newborns, sometimes they will have their bottles at the same time and sometimes they will need bottles at different times. They also will eat a small amount at each feeding (1-2 oz), but take a long time to drink each bottle (up to 45 min). Finally, bottles will be given very often too (every 2-3 hr).
You will feel like you are constantly feeding one of your twin in this stage. This is a very demanding stage of life, especially with two babies to feed. Here are some tips to help make bottle feeding newborn twins a little easier.
- Get help: If you have family or friends around accept any help they are offering. There are many people who are happy to feed bottles to babies.
- Track feedings: You can use this Feeding Tracker made just for twins to stay organized by keeping track of which baby has eaten when and how much.
- Share feeding duties with your partner: Newborn twins are exhausting! When possible, split the feeding duties with your significant other so the burden is not only on one parent.
- Learn each twin’s eating preferences: You will find each of your babies has things they like or don’t like. The newborn stage is the time you will learn which bottle they prefer, how they like to be held when eating, etc.
- There is no schedule yet: Unfortunately, babies do not come out of the womb capable of being on a schedule. This stage is about feeding your babies on demand. It’s important to understand this so you don’t feel like you are failing when your babies aren’t eating at the same time.
- Learn how to bottle feed your twins simultaneously: See below for the exact ways you can try doing this.
Simultaneous Tandem Bottle Feeding of Twins
There are two options I would recommend to successfully tandem bottle feed two babies. The first option would be to invest in a double feeding pillow that can be used for bottle feeding or two bouncy seats. You can set your twins in these devices at the same time in order to make bottle feeding two babies much easier, while also keeping their heads elevated.
The second option is what I did. I would sit on our couch and set one newborn twin on my lap and one to my side, next to my thigh. Technically this might not be the most ideal because their heads were not all that elevated, but it worked and my babies were happy, so that’s what I did!
Remember, whatever option you choose, you will need to stop a few times to let your babies burp. You will also want to consider how easy it will be to clean up if your twins spit up.
Related: Best Twin Feeding Pillows
Work Towards Getting Twins on the Same Schedule
The goal is to eventually get your twin babies on the same schedule. This will be more possible as your babies approach 3 months old.
Once this happens, life with twins will get easier because you will have more time between feedings. I am not going to go into detail about schedules, but you can learn how to start teaching newborn twins to be on the same schedule here. And these printable Twin Feeding Schedules can go a long way in helping you understand what should be happening from newborn through 7+ months old.
How To Efficiently Bottle Feed Twins at Night
I have two blog posts that will help you determine how to bottle feed twins at night. One is about how to go about preparing bottles for night feeds and the other is about strategies for caring for newborn twins at night. I recommend checking both of them out, so you can decide the best way to bottle feed twins at night in your household.
How Many Bottles Do I Need for Twins?
You should get double the bottles that you would normally need for one baby. As a bottle feeding twin parent that means you will want at least 16 bottles for twins.
You might want to try this Bottle Box to start. It includes 5 different baby bottles, and you can use it to determine each twin’s bottle preferences. Once you know the best bottle for each baby, you can purchase the one(s) that works best.
Cleaning Bottles for Twins
I recommend bulk cleaning of bottles. My personal preference was to clean halfway through the day and then again at night. I know some twin parents who would save it all for the end of the day. It’s just your personal preference.
We would put a tub of soapy water in the sink to clean the bottles. I love this collapsible tub because I can store it under the sink when it’s not in use. I also absolutely love this bottle drying rack, I still use it today for drying my kids water bottles!
For the newborn stage, you might want to get a bottle sterilizer to make life easier. In our house we would just boil a big pot of water and sterilize, but this is probably not as efficient as a sterilizer.
Finally, you could also put the bottles and parts in the dishwasher. However, this will require that you run the dishwasher every single day. I also find the dishwasher isn’t as friendly for bottles lasting as long, they might start to look worn out.
But, the dishwasher could be the easiest option for you, so that would make it worth it in my opinion. Look into getting a dishwasher basket for all the bottle parts too.
No matter how you slice it, you will be doing a lot of bottle cleaning with twins. Find the method that works best for you.
Can Twin Babies Share a Bottle?
Your twins will share a lot of germs with each other, it just happens naturally. Technically, I suppose twins could share a bottle if they drink from it at separate times.
However, I do not see this being a very efficient or likely scenario. Although it will be mean cleaning more bottles each day, logistically it will be much more straightforward for each baby to have their own bottle at each feeding throughout the day.
Bottle feeding twins is easier (and not quite double duty) when you have a good plan in place.
That wraps up my top tips for bottle feeding twin parents. You will have some choices to make as to what is the most efficient way to do things in your family.
Once you figure that out, you will get into a good routine making life a tad bit easier as you care for your two babies. Lastly before I sign off, as a new twin parent you might find this bundle of printable Schedules & Trackers for the First Year with Twins helpful to get organized and reduce stress. Good luck, you got this and remember this stage of life is temporary, it won’t be long before your twins are crawling and walking around.
