I haven't been reading these lately, and still not sure I've read every post on this thread.  I'll tell you a story about my daughter, Julia, who just turned 25.  She was not only 6 months old, but had been born with a congenital diaphragmatic hernia, not bonded with her birth parents, had serious emotional and social issues, and was being fed mostly by spoon and gastrostomy tube.  She was also only 9 pounds.  I was very anxious to get her started nursing, both for milk and nurturing.  The first try, you would have thought I was trying to throw her into a fire.  She freaked out before I could get her face anywhere near me and she held her breathe, vomited and took a good 30 minutes to get where her lips weren't purple any more.  I called a LC I knew, in Phoenix, and a LLL Leader.  I was told that she was too old and it wasn't even possible.  I got her bottlefeeding well, no more tube, and gaining well, but I couldn't give up on the idea of getting her nursing. I produced milk from nursing with the Lact-Aid, on demand, with her older brother, but couldn't pump more than a dribble.  She was still seriously compromised from the CDH and very prone to pneumonia.  Milk donation was very rarely taking place, then.  So, I had to keep trying.  I finally succeeded in getting her taking my breast with only the Lact-Aid, the day before her first birthday, and she nursed for just over 13 months.


There are a few things that helped, with Julia,  which have helped other moms I've been in contact with, since then, which I'm not sure have been mentioned, or at least not explained, in other posts.  One was not to let her get upset.  That set us WAY back!  I always had whatever she had been accepting easily, all ready to give her if she started getting frustrated.


Karleen mentioned threading a tube through a bottle nipple.  That was a revelation I had one night, in 1991, after having spent days trying to figure out how to get my breast nipple into a bottle nipple.  I got an old lei needle, threaded it through the hole of a wide-based bottle nipple, and sucked on it, myself, to see if it was going to work.  It did!  The nipple didn't collapse, and the supplement came through just fine, without any air being sucked around it.  First, I got her used to bottles with wide-based nuk nipples.  Then, I started feeding her with the nipple, attached to an SNS tube.  The Lact-Aid can be used, but I had both and found that, although I preferred the Lact-Aid overall, the SNS is little easier, for that purpose.  This was largely due to the tubes being longer and the ability to wind up the tube when not in use and seal it off, without removing the nipple from the end of it.


It's very important to use the right kind of nipple, for it.  It can only have one hole, and it has to be tight enough to form a tight seal around the tube.  If it's too loose, the baby will suck air along with supplement, which most babies don't like.  Latex holds onto the tube better than silicone.  Silicone is also easy to tear, while threading the tube, so it can be used, but extra care is required.


At first, you can start the baby out in whatever position she's been used to taking bottles.  When baby is settled in, she can be gradually turned toward the breast.  In many babies, this is one of the most critical steps.  Once the baby will accept being held with the bottle nipple directly over the breast,  you can start attempts to get the baby the take the breast.  Many moms, myself included, find that just being able to hold the baby in that position is gratifying.  I didn't push too hard, with Julia, and fed her in that way, for about two weeks before trying to go further.  I did have to use a latex nipple shield, for a few days, which didn't work all that well.  One day, I decided to try without it, again, she latched on, and it was worth all the time it had taken to get there!


About the time I succeeded with Julia, I learned that Marta Guoth Gumberger had gotten another baby, who was 10 months old and very resistant to efforts to nurse him.  I told her what I did with Julia and she took them and adapted them to work, for her.  She used a nipple shield that had a teat like a bottle nipple on it, which I see someone else has suggested.  Marta also had to trim the shield so there was gradually more and more skin exposed.  She took pictures and wrote it up for the German journal Stillnachrichten.


One more thing I've learned is that age is only one factor in the challenge of getting an older baby nursing.  What the baby's life has been like prior to that is also a big factor.  The more trauma the baby has been through, the less he or she is likely to be able to accept changes easily.  Patience is especially important.  It's good for moms to be reminded that the child will still have time to benefit from it, even if it takes weeks or months to get there!


I hope that is helpful!  I've been trying to think of a possible way to market a kit for setting up the nipple/tube combo, or a device that is all ready set up, which would work the same, but know nothing about business or marketing.  I know it could be helpful, both with adopted children and others whose moms are relactating.  If anyone has any ideas about that, I'd love to hear them!



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