how to put on nipple shields, can anybody help

[pigletmania]

After a difficult start and introduction of the bottle, ds 5 weeks is unable to latch so i have bought some Medela nipple shields to help ds to latch. AT the moment i am pumping most of his feeds so maintaining supply. Can anyone help explain to me how to put on nipple shields. Is there any good diagram that can show me? i am desperate for ds to latch and feed off me instead of pumping

Hi Pigletmania
Just make sure the shield is covering as much of your nipple as possible. And try to centre the shield over your nipple so it fills the teat without banging the sides. It's a lot of trial and error I'm afraid as everyone's nipples are different . I found that if you squeeze some milk into the teat of the shield and smeared some around the rest of the shield it would a) give the baby instant milk to get it sucking and b) help the shield stick to your skin better. I used them for 6 months and while they are fiddley at least I was still able to BF.
Best of luck with them and congrats on your new LO .

Just remembered, if there is too much milk smeared on the shield it will just slide off your boob!

If your still having problems using shield ask Hv or midwife to pop in to show you as their there to help! well done for persevering and happy rewarding bonding and feeding

thanks everyone, would love ds to go on the boob instead of pumping

Hope shields help you, piglet - you are certainly working your way through the book :)

I agree - this is worth a try and you have nothing to lose.

Nipple shields differ in size - some manufacturers have more than one size in their range - so you could browse online.

The way they are supposed to work for non-latching babies is to give them something 'solid' that stimulates the sucking action in the mouth. To be honest, I rarely see them help with this without creating other problems, but just occasionally the good outweighs the bad.

You need to make sure there is no air under them to make them stick.... Fold the shield back on itself so the sides stick up, place the teet over your nipple and push the sides down slowly so there are no little air pockets. Hope that makes sense.... Hard to explain in writing!

i know Tiktok i am jut desperate for him to feed atmy breast instead of pumping, i am going to a bf suport group on Monday to see if they can help

You need to sort if roll it on so you create a bit of a vacuum and some of your nipple gets sucked up into it. Not as hard as it sounds, and makes it easier to get latch.

Second the suggestion of hand expressing a few drops into the end.

Also if you end up sticking with them bear on mind they do stretch and lose their shape, so replace regularly.

I used the same method as Pastabee. Good luck with it piglet, I really hope it works for you. I agree with Tiktok that nipple shields aren't ideal but they worked really well for me. DD couldn't latch and we wouldn't have been able to breastfeed at all without the nipple shields. They were a bit of a faff to use and DD's feeds were always long and slow, but overall feeding with nipple shields was much better than not breastfeeding at all. I used the shields for the first 6 months then DD suddenly managed to latch on without them, and now at 7 months she feeds brilliantly. Hope they work well for you too.

I found filling the teat with milk meant DD got on with the task at hand rather than faffing which helped.

I had the medela ones and they were a God send. I don't think I could have breastfed without them. I used to sort of stick the corner down, innermost to the breastbone first, and then run my finger round the shield to stick the rest down.

Like hefner, one day we just didn't need them.