Source
r/breastfeeding•
NotSomeTokenBunny

Help with weaning off shield

My little one will be 2 weeks old tomorrow and for the most part, she’s been nursing like a champ!

I have kind of flat nipples and very dense breast tissue, so I was given a nipple shield while in the hospital. My baby has a very strong suck, so it’s starting to get really painful to nurse with the shield (she actually pulls part of my nipple through the little holes in the shield), but we’re struggling to latch at all without it. I just ordered one of those nipple everters and it should be here on Thursday, but does anyone else have any tips or advice?

Posted May 31, 2022, 9:36 PM UTC

23
OkTangerine4617•

i had to nurse with nipple shields the first month it was frustrating. Try nursing her with it on til your nipple gets big then take it off and see if she'll latch. It can take like a week to be completely off of them.

3
Sensitive-Tailor2698•

When I was weaning my son off of the nipple shield, I'd latch with the shield until the letdown started, then unlatch and pop off the shield and latch again. Eventually we worked up to latching directly and we were off the shield in a week.

2
mahamagee•

I’ve another post on this about a week ago but I weaned off the shield then and we are going strong since. Here’s what helped- skin to skin with baby. I stayed in bed the entire first day, and when out of bed I was topless with baby in the sling. Try to feed when they first wake after a sleep. They’re more primal then. Hand express some milk and dribble it onto their lips. Don’t be afraid to manhandle your boobs- I like the lying down position because I can use one or even two hands if I need to shape the boob til she can latch (boob sandwich). The lactation consultant taught me a kind of nipple roll you can do to get the nipple Into their mouth and that works great. If you’re hard and uncomfortable, look up reverse pressure softening. I have to do this at night for example when she sleeps maybe a 5 hour chunk.

The easiest position for me was lying down with baby in bed with me and nipple at mouth height. Using a hand pump for a few minutes helped, just enough to extract the nipple and start flow. Now I don’t need that thankfully coz that was a lot of work and incredibly tricky to time. I liked the Mendala (spelling?) nipple formers, I wore them between feeds. Found the haakaa ladybugs useless for that purpose.

2