Friends at Lactnet, As introduction, I am Leslie Payne and I have been a LLL Leader for 17 years. My specific need at this time is help with a baby whose birth I attended 6 weeks ago as labor assistant. The basics are this: Laney was born in a state of secondary apnea and, thus, was in the special care nursery for 2 weeks until she came home. No one can say at this point whether there is any neurological damage or problem, but feeding her has been a serious problem. She came home on an NG tube which was removed at 4 weeks when the parents proved that they could get enough milk in her by bottle. Her activity at the breast is disoriented at best. She is on phenobarbitol to prevent seizures. (She did have 2 seizures within 24 hours of birth, none since then.) The neurologist considers this necessary for at least another 6 weeks. I believe this has some effect on her feeding but it is not negotiable at this point. Her feeding habits and abilities are frenetic and not very predictable. She does better with the bottle than the breast because the mom can basically jam the bottle nipple in her mouth and squeeze the milk out if she has to and she does sometimes have to do that. This same method has been unsuccessful at the breast! The basic problem at the breast is that she will not latch on AND suck. Sometimes she latches on but won't suck, mostly she either falls asleep or screams. I know this sounds like run-of-the-mill nipple confusion but since it is imperative that Laney get enough milk (she's on the thin side), the parents are nervous about taking her off the bottle totally. Also, it took her about 2 weeks to learn to bottle feed well enough to get rid of the NG tube and they don't want that back. Our newest plan is to pick the most-likely-to-be-successful feeding of the day (or night) and try to breastfeed only that one feeding until time for the next feeding, then bottle feed the rest of the day. This way we cut out at least one feeding where Laney has possibly learned to hold out for the bottle. She does almost no non-nutritive sucking and never has, really. If you think you can help us, PLEASE do!!!!!! This mom is dedicated to pumping and bottlefeeding for at least a year and has more motivation to do so than other moms I've worked with. But, I've never seen that work for a whole year before. Of course, I would lots rather see her nurse her baby at the breast for all the reasons you all know. This is her first baby, so she doesn't know them all but really does have the desire. She is very scared about compromising Laney's progress, though. Please, either post to me personally at [log in to unmask] or post to the list with Laney's name in the subject so I can find it quickly. I do believe we are at the end of our chance to get this baby to the breast and I regret not working harder earlier, but there were lots of extenuating circumstances. Thanks a lot.