18 month old rejecting nipple shield. Help!

[Thisisfinethisisallfine]

So my 18 month old has always had a shallower latch when teething, but we’ve muddled through this far and it’s been fine.

However, she also has damage to her front teeth now, which has made them jagged and sharp. (Long story, but they were damaged whilst still forming when she had to have high dose IV antibiotics for suspected sepsis at 8 weeks old, so any normal toddler knock can cause more breakage).

This means that this spate of terrible latching has been extra awful and I am in so much pain feeding her and my nipples are so damaged now I need time for them to heal without her on them. Thought I’d try nipple shields but she won’t even try. She just screams at them. Any tips for helping her to accept them!?

Kindly OP it may be with looking at coming to an end with BF. Nipple shields don’t seem to agree with a lot of babies (toddlers) and since your toddler can eat solid food why are you trying to continue?

Youve done an awesome job but the teeth thing would be (and was for me) a deal breaker.

If you do want to continue I would call one of the Breastfeeding Helplines

I think it will be very tricky to get an 18 month old to accept a major change to breastfeeding.

Sometimes taking off and finishing a feed the minute teeth come into it helps but I your dc case maybe there just isn't another way because of combined shallow latch and teeth issue. I do remember really tough weeks at times because of teething but I just got through. Definitely look for support if you wish to continue. I'm not really surprised they're rejecting the shield at this stage.