When breastfeeding doesn’t go well from the beginning, there many ways that you can protect your baby’s milking reflex, so that when you are both more confident, you can reintroduce breastfeeding with little trouble.

One way of protecting your baby’s milking reflex is to cup feed instead of introducing a bottle or nipple shield. Introducing a cup feed will ensure that your baby is still milking or lapping the milk from a little cup, instead of learning a whole new sucking action, commonly associated with bottle feeds.

Moms who would usually consider the introduction of cup feeds, would be moms experiencing breastfeeding problems, sore breasts, sore nipples, or even moms with inverted nipples.

As there are various degrees of inverted nipples, we can expect various time frames in which a baby and mom will master breastfeeding. For example, a mom with slightly inverted nipples, may only have minimal breastfeeding challenges in the early days. The use of a cup, will ensure that baby is able to get enough food and maintain interest in breastfeeding, until he/she is able to master latching onto the breast and milking it efficiently.

Moms who are presenting with true inverted nipples, may take a longer to master breastfeeding and so it is not uncommon for these moms to consider the use of a cup in the early days. Usually by day 5 or 6 as the baby starts to demand more food, moms will explore feeding with a nipple shield or possibly even nipple shields. Many moms do persist with cup feeding until their baby is 2 weeks or older before moving onto a Dr Browns bottle to save time and protect the baby’s milking action, whilst trying to master breastfeeding with inverted nipples.

Ultimately, I believe that you need to do what is right for your family as you will naturally want what is best for your baby!

Let's Breastfeed is dedicated to making your breastfeeding dreams a reality. If I can't see you in person, you can still have me in your living room with my Let's Breastfeed Program! www.letsbreastfeed.com/blog