Cathy, there are no perfect teats around for what you are wanting to do.
Finger sucking can help if mom is certain to place it correctly and lets the
baby draw in the finger. I have had *some* success with the Haberman Feeder
from Medela.  For one thing it is longer, helping with the humped-up tongue,
and for another it can be used to modify rate-flow preference.  The teat can
be turned to give little or no flow and baby continues to suckle and then,
when turned again, more milk flows.

One of the main things I tell moms is that they must not *stick* the teat
into the baby's mouth.  Touch the lips, wait for a wide mouth, place the
teat just inside the lips and let baby draw it into her mouth.  This, of
course, can reinforce the same pattern at the breast.  I find that the first
thing babies on bottles lose is the drawing-in technique.

There are NO guarantees that this will work with your client.  Nothing works
with all babies, as we know.  Usually finger feeding with either eye dropper
in corner of mouth or with feeding tube, works much better than any teat,
but sometimes the Haberman is a step toward the goal of feeding at the breast.

By the way, what happened in the cosmos on Wednesday night?  All four of my
"toughie" babies got it together overnight and are feeding at the breast.
Do the rest of you have days when all of the cases start going great and
days when everything falls apart? Do these little critters communicate by
ESP in the night and plot ways to challenge their moms and LCs?

Patricia Gima, IBCLC
Milwaukee



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