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Mom states:
"I've recently started having some trouble with nursing my 3 month old daughter and am looking for suggestions on how to handle them.   She was born 10 weeks premature so her adjusted age is 1 month.
 
The issues are:
 
1) She will nurse from the first breast but has started to take long pauses between sucks to play with the nipple with her tongue. It makes nursing take a much longer time. 
 
2) She struggles against the 2nd breast yet mouths and sticks out her tongue like she is hungry. She will start to cry if I don't replace the 2nd breast with a bottle. I switch the sides I start from so it isn't a preference for one side or the other. 
 
She must take a bottle 3 times a day because she needs vitamin/iron supplements, which I mix with pumped breast milk so weaning her from the bottle isn't an option. She readily takes the bottle and never struggles against it.   Also, she uses a nipple shield which I was trying to wean her off of.  Without the nipple shield, she will only latch for a minute or two before pulling off.  Since the other issues have started I've stopped trying to wean her off the shield simply to get her to feed.
 
How do I keep her focused on feeding and not playing with the first breast? Why is she refusing the 2nd breast and how do I get her to nurse from the 2nd breast?"

It seems as though mom was given a nipple shield in the hospital because of prematurity...she's ok with either keeping the shield or weaning from it (and has tried to do so).  But even with the shield the switch from one side to the other has been giving her trouble in the last week. 

My thoughts are that baby is having a hard time transitioning to the second breast and maybe some skin-to-skin might "organize" this still-young babe. Am I missing something? 

Meghan Mueller, IBCLC

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