Jennifer,

Would use of a nipple shield at breast be of help to at least get baby back 
to breast?  If baby resists shield at breast, mom might try the shield over the 
bottle nipple first (Diane Wiessinger's tip) to get him used to it.  The 
Playtex natural latch nipple tends to have the shield fit nicely.  

Sounds as if the CST is needed but wonder if mom is also doing any gentle jaw 
massage; might Dancer hand help stabilize his jaw and offer support so until 
he can use it more appropiately he doesn't have to compensate so much?  Would 
this baby allow finger feeding?  Even if used for tongue strengthening as an 
exercise and not entire feed, this could help strengthen his tongue cupping and 
extrusion.  Tongue sweeping to encourage cupping or the pacifier tug of war 
(via C. Genna) could also help him gain tongue muscle strength.  Sounds like he 
uses lots of compensatory movements to just get milk, poor guy.  Also wonder 
if Early Intervention with OT or SLP might be an additional aid at this time.

Think of all the months this little one had (both in utero and since birth) 
using tongue and jaw incorrectly, so will need a fair amount of time to 
correct.  In these frustrating circumstances, I find it helps moms to think in terms 
of duration of breastfeeding.  The weeks, or even months, of struggling and 
work pay off down the road when that happy breastfed older baby/toddler is 
nursing well.  Along with projecting ahead, ongoing support day-by-day and taking 
one day at a time also helps mom to continue.  

Barbara Latterner, BSN, RN, IBCLC


             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html