Latch difficulties with preemies.

Has anyone had success getting preemies to latch properly? I feel that I'm not getting the best latches. Their mouths are so tiny (2.5 weeks old, born at 34+2) and I'm wondering if that's part of the problem. They are exclusively fed breastmilk but I'm worried they'll get too used to bottles and I want to get them on the breast more, but not with improper latches. (Of course at our last session with an lc they latched perfectly without help so I didn't get tons of practice.) any advice appreciated!

 

:gah: That used to happen to me all the time too!! So frustrating.

I found the solution for us was just a combo of time and practice. Hang in there!

 

I had to use nipple shields with my preemies because their mouths were just far too small to be able to latch properly.  That said, mine were born at 31 weeks and in the NICU for 6/7 weeks so they were probably smaller than yours!  Although even once they were past their due date and I went to an LC to see if she could help me get rid of the nipple shield, she advised me to keep using it because their mouths were still really tiny and I had a vigorous let down that the shield helped with.