I am responding to Heidi's request for successful nipple shield experiences or other strategies for getting a 3.5 month old bottle feeding baby on the breast. I have had two cases in the past year where I have used an "outlaw" nipple shield when it was clear that NOTHING else would work. Both babies has disorganized sucks and in the first case the baby was finger fed for her first week and was still losing weight when she presented to me, down 14%. I fed the baby pumped mother's milk with a bottle because it was clear to me that we needed to feed the baby by whatever means necessary. I find that you can use a bottle for babies that can't organize to breastfeed initially. Once we get the baby built up, we can work on the direct feeding from the breast. I have found that the baby will not give up trying to nurse as long as the mother is willing to work on it. In both cases these babies took six weeks of bottle feeding and working at breastfeeding with the "outlawed" nipple shield to make the transition. Mothers required a lot of support to persevere. I did vision work/imagery with them to sustain their resolve when progress was slow, but it worked. I couldn't have helped these babies to nurse without the "outlaw" nipple sheild. It's the old fashioned one that looks like a bottle nipple on a rigid plastic flange that fits over the nipple/areola like a breatpump fitting. BOO-HISSS...I can hear it now, plugged ducts, poor milk transfer, nipple preference. I was presented with this gadget by the first of these two women, she brought it with her to our first meeting. I had never seen one "in person" before. I didn't know they were still being manufactured. We had to work to get her baby to take adequate food with a bottle and then we taught her to take breastmilk at breast with the "outlaw". It was a stuggle, but at four weeks, we were able to latch her baby on, but then the baby didn't latch again for five days, and it took a lot of support to keep the mother focused on the long term outcome, the vision of the baby nursing. I am open to whatever works and never would have endorsed the "outlaw" except that it worked when nothing else would with two babies who had similar tongue sucking latches. Over time, as the babies grew confident about getting enough to eat, abundant milk supplies ensured with a rigorous pumping schedule, feeding at breast with shield, supplementing after breastfeeding with bottle if baby acted hungry. Initially mother was feeding baby three times, once to pump, once with shield and then with bottle to satisfy if still hungry after nipple shield feeding. Gradually, babies were able to get more satisfied from the nipple shield as they developed their skills and it became apparent that they could manage faster flow, so we enticed them to nurse directly at breast. At this point we had some latch correction to do, and some nipple soreness to resolve, but babies were breastfeeding...and still are, one at 4.5 months and one at 13 months (actually 13 month old is having nursing strike). So my message is e-mail me privately and I'll give you more info about the "outlaw" and the strict requirements for it's use.I don't know how well it will work with an older infant, both of mine started in their first week, but one was two weeks old before she even took the sheild. I'd publish these case studies, but I'm painting my house instead. Also, if I could get started on my craniosacral study, I could probably have helped these babies to latch earlier. Blessings. k *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html