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