Becky -

You don't say when the mother went back to 8-hr. work days after the birth
of the twins. Was it fairly recently?

It sounds to me (to put this in the most simplistic way possible) like those
babies are mad at her for not being available during their waking hours.
They are beginning to lose their perception of the breast as a source of
comfort because so much of the time it *isn't*, from their point of view.
(They're right, too, by the way.)

And I think, as you say, the mom is SO TIRED, and frustrated, and probably
feels like she's going every which way, and why can't those darn babies just
latch on & NURSE when she's around, darn it? So I don't know what, if
anything, can be done about mom's work situation, and I've certainly known
mothers of multiples to manage the whole fulltime work + BFing scene
successfully. But if she only will try 5 minutes before "giving in" to the
bottle, my technical diagnosis is that she's frazszled.

What's her support situation like? Does she have someone around who can
absolutely dote on HER while she's home - prepare her food, nourish her &
comfort her physically and emotionally? Can she just take the babies to bed
for the weekend (or take a week or two off work), and just "give it all up"
in terms of the rest of her life for a few days? I know for many, many women
this wouldn't be possible - but I also know that being a mother to young
twins and working at a full-time job can really wear you out, unless there's
an equal flow (of what? love? nourishing? support?) coming in.

I'm assuming you've ruled out the more blatant suspects - yeast, food
intolerances, etc. I'm only following my instincts here (not research-based
science, but plenty of experience as a mother of twins), and am just
guessing the babies are "mad" and showing it the only way they have, and the
mother is exhausted and getting frantic, and the whole lot need to be tucked
up in bed and given limitless TLC and a few nice warm shared baths.

Cathy Bargar, RN, IBCLC Ithaca NY (who still, 18 years later, feels that way
with her twins some days!)

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html