Kathy, this is one of the notes that ended up in endless do-loops (don't loopsm
maybe?). It is a little late, but maybe still worthwhile!

As for your jaundiced baby, what happens when baby goes to the breast? Does he
scream, fight, sleep, not care? Seems like I've had some success with a similar
approach to the nipple shield/sns deal. I guess I would be hesitant to use the
shield as a first resort (realizing that you probably did other things, too).
Sometimes feeding an ounce to a reluctant baby--particularly one that is too
jaundiced-induced sleepy to feed--can jump start a baby to where he has enough
energy to do it himself. Perhaps even finger feeding would help, provided it is
done so that he has to work to get anything by finger. The nurses at the
hospital  I saw moms at in Atlanta had this habit of essentially force feeding
babies by finger and baby would little more than swallow large amounts of milk
in self defense. We trained some of them to start by triggering the rooting
reflex by tickling the mouth, slipping finger in, waiting for a suck and then
reward with a SMALL amount of milk. This seemed to help baby figure out what was
expected of him at the breast and could be switched pretty quickly to the breast
if set up that way.  Then the same nurses discovered cup feeding and quickly
became converts to that  as they didn't have to stick fingers in baby's mouth or
trim long fingernails.

I'd like to hear others' experiences and opinions on nipple shields, cup
feeding, finger feeding, SNS (starter or big). When do you use which and when
WON'T you use which?

Melissa