My baby is a week old tomorrow and we've had a seriously rocky breastfeeding journey so far. I have one very flat nipple and one not so flat but short and very broad.

At first I could get her to poorly latch onto the "good side" but as we couldn't get a good latch it quickly got damaged and feeding her became very painful. She would come off after a few short sucks and eventually get frustrated and cry and not close her mouth. She started to become jaundice and her nappies were worrying my MW and my mother (an ob-gyn & lactation consultant/LLL-leader). I am determined that my LO has my milk (I have a really great supply, the only positive so far!) so eventually we took to feeding her with a lact-aid at the breast but she still was becoming frustrated easily or just sitting poorly latched and letting the lact-aid pour my EBM into her mouth.

Finally we got the big guns in and my mom asked one of her friends who is a very experienced lactation consultant to come help and she watched us try to nurse and told me LO isn't latching properly because she can't feel the nipple in the right part of her palate. So she showed me how to use a nipple shield and LO latched immediately and started taking big huge gulps and latched perfectly. My mom started to cry which set me off Things have been going pretty well since then (yesterday) and LO has had plenty of healthy poo.

My mom's friend is coming down again next weekend to help us begin to wean LO off of the shield and I'm terrified.. Everyone is telling me not to let myself get frustrated but I'm really not frustrated; I feel like such a failure because my body isn't the right shape to feed my baby. I don't want to be stuck with the shields forever but I'm worried if we take them away LO won't feed from me and I'll feel even worse about it. It has taken me+3 people to feed LO at times over the past few days and I'm really just feeling like a total failure. Really need to hear some success stories about shields, flat/inverted nipples and really anything positive you can share with me at the moment. Thanks for reading.

Hi! so glad you've managed to keep feeding, well done! You should be very smug we also started using shields at 1 week due to a combination of flat nipples, damaged nipples, and a bad case of thrush. We've used them ever since and LO is now 6 weeks. I also have a great supply, and loads of people have tried to tell me that it will hinder it, but that certainly hasn't been the case! I could feed another 10 children

Shields saved the day for us, without them I don't think I'd still be feeding. We both love BFing so much, and I'm so happy we can still do it Lots of HVs and MWs have told me to only use them short-term, but I intend to carry on as LO simply can't latch without them and gets frustrated If anyone tries to tell you to stop using them and you're not comfortable with it this link might help: http://thetruthaboutbreastfeeding.co...ipple-shields/

If you want to wean off them, great. If you don't, don't feel pressured. I'd rather focus on BFing than weaning her off shields right now, maybe it'll change later, but for now we're both very happy! The only hassle with them is feeding in public, they're a bit tricky to put on/take off etc but you soon get the hang of it also make sure you clean them after every use. I sterilise mine, but that's because I've had thrush twice and I got in to the habit then, and it made me paranoid! lol my breastfeeding consultant told me that under normal circumstances just washing them in warm soapy water was good enough, but whatever you feel comfortable with

Good luck with feeding, you're doing brilliantly! x x

I had very damaged nipples about 10 days in, and was in excrutiating amounts of pain (had undiagnosed thrush at the time!) with every feed. My midwife suggested I used nipple shields for a few days until the cracks healed. Immediately I noticed a huge difference.

It wasn't until I came to BnB for help getting through the thrush that I discovered that the shields could do more harm than good. So every couple of days or so I would try a "naked" feed without the shields and see if things had improved. If I was in too much pain I'd just pop the shields back on again.

At around the 3 month mark the thrush was just about gone, and little one suddenly decided that he didn't want to feed using the shields. There was no need fro me to wean him off, it just happened (yes I was probably just very lucky!). Don't feel pressured to wean your little one off the shields in just a couple of weeks time if you don't think the situation has improved enough, it is possible to leave it a while longer and then wean.

I also had very flat nipples, and I truly think that using the shields helped to draw the nipples out. Now I have the opposite problem and if I feel even a little bit chilly I have nipples that look as though they belong in the porn industry!!

As for damaging your supply, I breastfed for 15 months without any real supply issues at all, despite using shields almost exclusively for the first 3 months! Just because something CAN happen doesn't mean it WILL happen. Keep that in mind and go with your own instincts rather than what everyone thinks you should be doing. At the end of the day if the shields allow you to continue bfing then use them as BM for a few months is better than none at all.

HTH!

i have flat nipples

it was very painful to get a good latch in the beginning but i was taught to sandwhich the nipple in his mouth and he latches on great now and pulls out my nipple nicely but i did suffer from cracked nipples, milk blister, plugged milk ducts, you name it, in the beginning

its been almost 2 months of struggling with breastfeeding and only now starting to get better(knock on wood) so hang in there

Uv done amazing to sill WANT to feed Ur baby so don't beat yourself up! I have quite flat nipples but sort of squeeze nipple together into ds mouth then he pulls the rest out!

Like others say don't feel pressured at all, just feed your baby the way u can and the way u want to! I'd try without shield every few days and as baby gets more experienced and more developed I'm sure they will help u to feed them more if u get me! Someone with more experience will come along but I just wants to show support that u are doing everything possible and even more!

A good thing to try if you want to get rid of the nipple shield is just lay in bed with your LO just before feeding time. Take your shirt off and mostly let your LO find your nipple and latch himself.

If he won't then keep using the nipple shield and just keep trying the laying in bed and letting him self latch. There is no rush if you are having such a great supply. The more relaxed you are about the easier it will be for both of you. Just do what is right for the two of you.

It's great that you have such good support.

Hi lovely x I'm sorry to hear you've been having issues!

I too have flat nipples (both of them, booo). I had to syringe feed Lachlan for the first day because we couldn't establish breastfeeding, even our first attempt with nipple shields was a big fat fail. On day two I tried again with the nipple shields and voila! Got him latched and all went great.

Just try periodically to get Iris to eat without the shields and you'll do just fine. At least you know you have the shields there if you are having problems Good luck, you're doing great.

I ended up breastfeeding him with the nipple shields for the first couple of months, but I would try once a week to get him on the nipple and obviously eventually we were successful.

Hi I have never used nipple shields but I just wanted to show my support and say well done you for getting this far with all the probs, plenty of people would have switched to formula by now. Determination is definitely the key to successful bfing.

I was so happy reading through your post to see that the nipple shields are really working for you! Woop woop! I would see if you're able to wean off them but do it slowly and if it doesn't work for now, don't stress! You are able to feed your baby and that's fab! Goid for you hunni xxxx

that could have been written by me.
I have flat/broad/too big nipples and my baby's mouth is tiny, so she can't latch for any significant amount of time (more than a couple of seconds) without letting go and becoming frustrated. Nipple shields haven't worked for us either. I'm working with a lactation consultant too, and our plan is to just wait until baby's mouth grows and she can latch on properly. In the meantime, I'm pumping and feeding her with a tube attached to my finger.

On one hand, I'm happy she's getting my milk, she's growing and doing well. On the other hand, it's twice as much work (pumping, washing bottles, feeding, warming milk) and I feel so frustrated that my body is not working to feed my baby- I used to like my breasts and now I feel like they have failed me However, most days I focus on the positive. Hang in there... there's lots of us with similar problems and we are all trying to do the best for our LO and I guess that's the important part

Hugs!!

Hi

I am in a similar situation as you. I have flat and broad nipple sand DD can't latch on I had to express and top up the first couple days in hosp and thought I would be able to bf- had loads of mw trying to get her to latch and we both got very upset. Eventually a wonderful mw suggested the shields- amazing, she patched on straight away and we were off :-) DD is now 18 days old and we are getting on really well, she put on a lb in a week so they aren't stopping my supply at all!
The mw and hb are all keen for us to get rid of the shields and we occasionally trybut get no success. My nipples have come out slightly but when her warm mouth gets on them they shrink away again also coz my milk flows she just licks it off the end!!
For now I am happy using them but like a pp said it is tricky in public. I haven't been out much yet but will keep practicing doing it without looking :-)
So I will say good luck with what you decide to do but I think you will find that a lot of people use shields very successfully and the main thing is she's getting your milk :-)

Ps sorry for typos, on iPhone!