Nipple shields

[Tiredandemotional123]

Going to buy some nipple shields ready for the arrival of baby no.2. Had so much pain when I tried to breast feed 1st time around!

I'm a bit bamboozled though as they seem to come in different sizes. I have no idea what size my nips are! Any tips?

Nipple shields are useful, however they will only stop the pain of a bad latch (both dc have a tongue tie so we're initially bad latches). I am 4 weeks into feeding dc2 and feeding still hurts even with shields. However his latch has improved so he has been weaned off of them now and the drawing pain of feeding is lessening each day.

I was using the medela 20mm ones.

Are you meant to get them so your nipple fills the teat bit? runs off to measure nipple

I found them really helpful when ds was cluster feeding and my nipples were really tender and sore, even though his latch was fine. I didn't really think too hard about size, I just bought the medela 20 mm ones, and got on fine with them (until the dog ate them). I also had a set of the ardo ones which were also great. (The dog ate those too...)

Medela are good. Watch what you're doing though, I used nipple shields as bf was suffering due to undiagnosed tongue tie and ended up doing it that way for almost a year. It got very tedious washing them and fumbling to put on a nipple shield for night feeds etc, so if you can avoid the baby getting hooked on them it's definitely easier...

They need to be a tiny bit wet to go on comfortably I vaguely remember...

I have one sore side and one less sore side so I managed to wean dc2 off of them easily as he was already used to feeding both ways. Maybe remember that just in case as I had a harder time getting dc1 off of them as I used them both sides.

The midwives discouraged me from using them the first time around so I ended up just not breast feeding because it felt like razor blades every time I fed the baby. Going to try without but want to have some in my armoury in case this baby has razor blade gums too!

It depends what causes the pain for you. I am one of the unlucky women that just have to push through the pain for a few weeks as it's the actual let down that hurts me. Even if it's the same for you, the pain will lessen and subside, usually by 2 weeks but I'm now on week 4 and expect the pain to be gone by 6 weeks like last time.

If you do really want to breastfeed, you can mix feed to give your boobs a break and then cut the bottle out. Try to only use the bottle during the day rather than at night as that will affect your supply less. I did that with dc1 and he had two bottles a day for a few months until the pain stopped and I gradually cut them out.

Medela ones are usually the ones midwives recommend. There’s a sizing guide on the medela website and I just followed that (and yes, measure your nipples).

If it’s reassuring though I had a terrible time with my first. I have flat nipples and used shields because she couldn’t latch otherwise. We only made it 10 weeks and it was awful. My 2nd is 4 months now and we had no problems at all. I never even opened the shields I bought! It was painful the first couple weeks but only at letdown (which is normal as long as latch is fine). It couldn’t have been more completely different than the first time. Hopefully you’ll find the same.