What Exactly Does it Mean to Triple Feed?

Excellent question, when a baby is losing weight, or struggling to gain weight, a lactation consultant or pediatrician may suggest a common strategy called Triple Feeding.

Every 2 - 3 hours you will: 

FIRST nurse the baby at the breast for 10-15 minutes

SECOND pump both breasts til empty

THIRD give the baby a bottle of either expressed milk or formula 

Hence the TRIPLE feed.

The purpose of this regimen is to:

• keep the baby practicing transferring milk from the breast, 

• while ALSO ensuring the breast is completely emptied to stimulate a full milk supply 

• AND ensuring the baby is completely full and fed. 

Triple feeding is not easy. If you have family or friends you can call in to help, now is the time! The DCBD postpartum doulas are very familiar with this routine and know how to support you. Stay in touch with your lactation consultant. Prioritize rest during this period - stay close to home, go to bed early, spot your partner for naps. 

The whole feeding regimen will take at least an hour or more, and if you’re feeding every two hours during the day, that doesn’t leave you much time to get all the other things done (bathroom break, eating, sleeping, bathing, laundry, walk the dog, order groceries, etc - real life!). 

At night, Triple Feeding can be particularly challenging - so I usually recommend going down to a ‘double feed’, i.e. just pumping and giving baby a bottle, during at least a couple of the feedings at night (depending on how often the baby is feeding and how much of a break you need), to save you some time and get more rest. After all, the purpose of step 1, the breastfeeding component, is for practice, because we know Baby isn’t getting most of their calories there but we want them to stay familiar. If they’ve spent the day going to the breast first, they’ve gotten lots of practice in, and skipping that a couple times during the night shift isn’t going to be a big deal.

You’ll really want a helper to give the baby the bottle after nursing while the lactating parent pumps, so that you can do steps 2 and 3 simultaneously and finish up more quickly. (You usually work ahead with the bottles, so you give a bottle that you pumped last time). 

This process will create a lot of dirty bottles and pump parts, so I will mention again that the dishwasher is a very effective cleaning AND sanitizing tool that is CDC-approved! ;) No need to handwash unless you particularly enjoy standing at the sink handwashing for hours a day. 

All that being said - Triple Feeding is usually a very effective way to simultaneously boost milk supply and help your baby gain weight. If you’re committed to really getting breastfeeding going, you may decide it’s a challenge worth undertaking. What’s key to remember is that it is temporary! No one is going to ask you to do Triple Feeding for months (or at least, they shouldn’t! Get a second opinion!). This is a short term strategy to provide a boost to lagging milk supply and/or weight, and it will pass. In most cases, just a week or two of Triple Feeding turns the boat around. 

~ Naomi, Infant Feeding Expert*

*If you need help to schedule your bundled Infant Feeding session with Naomi…email Elizabeth Parish.