My most resistent non-nurser ever had a mom with very very firm breasts and
very very flat nipples, some years ago.

After we had tried everything we knew to try, she had a nursing friend
offer her breast.  Baby refused.  Friend held baby tightly at breast and
bounced with him.  Baby refused to latch.  Friend bounced harder and
harder, finally bouncing so vigorously that her feet left the floor with
each bounce, and she gave us a moment-by-moment report:  "He just sucked
once.  Suck.   Another suck.  Now he feels well attached.  Now he's
sucking...sucking."  And he nursed.  The flat-nippled mom said she felt a
difference in how her baby sucked on her finger after nursing from her
friend.

But he still refused his mom, so they arranged an afternoon of exchanging
babies.  Friend's baby was 8 or 10 months old, and took to the firm, flat
breast after a short period of confusion.  And the newborn spent the
afternoon nursing pretty well.

I'm quite sure it would have worked if the emotional burden of seeing her
baby nurse for someone else but not for her, hadn't become too great for
her and she decided not to give it more time.  She opted instead to wean
off the pump.  But I was still impressed by the friend's techniques and the
progress the baby made toward effective nursing, just by being in the arms
of an experienced nursing mother with an easier breast.  How much work,
time, money, and tears might be saved if new moms were more willing to get
this kind of direct help from their nursing friends??

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC, LLLL  Ithaca, NY