thank you for writing about shields! i have a nearly 10 month old and have used shields from day 3 or so. i had no idea they existed until sitting i was in the hospital in agony while my milk was coming in and a kind nightshift midwife suggested trying them. still going strong with BFing to this day and i honestly owe it to the shields. “They are just a tool which helped me feed my baby. Nothing more or less. And how could I not be grateful for that.” i could not agree more with this sentiment
I am so glad you feel this way! I 💯 made peace with using them for the whole time, if I needed to! And now that baby is teething I sometimes have cause to use them again 🫠.
Reading this felt like a salve. I have a 2 month old who struggled to feed at the beginning due to complications with jaundice. A nurse suggested a shield in the hospital when my nipples started cracking, and I used it without question, only later learning about how "controversial" they are, and began feeling similar levels of doubt and guilt, especially since my daughter wasn't gaining weight and I was convinced it was the nipple shield (thank you judgmental healthcare practitioners and strangers on the Internet). Thankfully, my midwives and an excellent lactation consultant helped me realize this was, as you said, just a tool! Still, it's not easy to tell yourself you're doing a good job when your baby is screaming or not gaining weight or any number of relatively common or totally normal newborn things! Thankfully I'm now at a place where I use it when I need it and don't think twice about it. Hearing others' similar experiences reminds me how much pressure is put on new parents and how BS most of it is!
Always a true delight when a piece does what you hope it might — Ie, act as a salve! I am glad you got to the same conclusion on your own, but those first few days/weeks are just such chaos it’s so easy to do x/y/z without knowing the whole picture and then read terrible things on the internet and think you’ve wrecked everything. I am glad your baby is thriving now! Long live the nipple shield!
I’m reading that too! I got gifted the set, but then the gift made the mistake of telling me about the Netflix series which delayed me reading them, but the books are of course much more complex and better than the video series which is also good though. Better to read the books 1st.
thank you for writing about shields! i have a nearly 10 month old and have used shields from day 3 or so. i had no idea they existed until sitting i was in the hospital in agony while my milk was coming in and a kind nightshift midwife suggested trying them. still going strong with BFing to this day and i honestly owe it to the shields. “They are just a tool which helped me feed my baby. Nothing more or less. And how could I not be grateful for that.” i could not agree more with this sentiment
I am so glad you feel this way! I 💯 made peace with using them for the whole time, if I needed to! And now that baby is teething I sometimes have cause to use them again 🫠.
Reading this felt like a salve. I have a 2 month old who struggled to feed at the beginning due to complications with jaundice. A nurse suggested a shield in the hospital when my nipples started cracking, and I used it without question, only later learning about how "controversial" they are, and began feeling similar levels of doubt and guilt, especially since my daughter wasn't gaining weight and I was convinced it was the nipple shield (thank you judgmental healthcare practitioners and strangers on the Internet). Thankfully, my midwives and an excellent lactation consultant helped me realize this was, as you said, just a tool! Still, it's not easy to tell yourself you're doing a good job when your baby is screaming or not gaining weight or any number of relatively common or totally normal newborn things! Thankfully I'm now at a place where I use it when I need it and don't think twice about it. Hearing others' similar experiences reminds me how much pressure is put on new parents and how BS most of it is!
Always a true delight when a piece does what you hope it might — Ie, act as a salve! I am glad you got to the same conclusion on your own, but those first few days/weeks are just such chaos it’s so easy to do x/y/z without knowing the whole picture and then read terrible things on the internet and think you’ve wrecked everything. I am glad your baby is thriving now! Long live the nipple shield!
Thank you for your honesty!
I’m reading that too! I got gifted the set, but then the gift made the mistake of telling me about the Netflix series which delayed me reading them, but the books are of course much more complex and better than the video series which is also good though. Better to read the books 1st.