Nipple Shield hell - how difficult is it to try and use the darn things whilst holding your baby!

[EmmaPP]

i've just come home yesterday with my little cherub - was born at 32 weeks + 6 days and is now 36 weeks and 4 days (gestational age). She can feed fine with bottle (with my expressed milk), but im also trying to percevere with nipple shield. trouble is, getting that darn thing to stay on when im trying to hand pump milk into her mouth is a nightmare whilst holding her too. Plus no idea how much if any milk is going into her mouth, hence am "topping up" with bottle...anyone else having nipple shield hell? any tips you can offer? she also wont start sucking if there's no milk in shield - so i have to try and balance the shield (and her) so that i can pour some milk in it (without it falling out the holes in the end!) to get her started - inevitably getting the milk all over her and me and having crying hungry baby. I dont want to bottle feed her, but unless my mum/husband are on tap to help, i cant do the nipple shield myself. any advise gratefully received. Also, can anyone recommend a cheap baby changing unit - ie what you put changing mat on? i cant find any under £60 and we only need it for 3 months as going to live abroad after that.

will she latch on if you give her a bit of expressed milk first? if you give her some so that she isn't quite so ravenous then perhaps she'll latch on without the shield?

are you doing anything in particular to try and get her off using them?
just wondering cos that might be the easiest solution!

ikea for a changing unit thingy- 20 quid when i got mine!

I hate nipple shields even though they were the reason i managed to stick with BF a tongue tie baby until the tie was snipped.
Have you had one slowly peel off your boob yet and stick to the babys nose preventing them from breathing... sounds funny, is funny, but not funny when you have your hands full with baby and have to unlatch so you can peel it off their face
Do you mind if i ask why you are using shields?

I used nipple shields for a few days but they were more trouble then they were worth. Is there a reason why you are still using it?

As for changing table if you are only going to be using it for a short period of time then I wouldn't bother with it. Change mat on the floor works just as well and you don't have to worry about them rolling off it.

thanks for all your msgs. reason we're using nipple shield is SCBU nurse suggested - as she wont latch on without it. without it, she doesnt realise nipple is in her mouth - even when milk coms out of it, she thrashes around still looking to clamp down on a nipple - ie doesnt realise it's already in her mouth. So she cant suckle without it. With shield, so long as there's milk in it when it first goes into her mouth, she does then suckle with it. did any of you find this? really difficult getting milk into it - as when i try and hand express into the shield whilst it's on me, the darn shield comes off!

I had to use shields for a couple of weeks to get bf established and found that the best way of getting it to stay put was to stick it to my boob wth a bit of cooled boiled water.

You could do that and and express a bit of milk out before putting your DD to the breast.

persevere with bf without the shields too

Congrats on bringing you dd home - its exciting isnt it

Or you could try had expressing a few drops and using that instead of cooled water, then your dd might be more interested because of the milky smell. I found ds wasnt much of a fan of breastfeeding when i'd just plucked the shield out of my pot of milton.. i had to let the air circulate a but first.