When is the best time to start using nipple shields?

Hi everyone

So I gave birth on to my Lil' bundle of joy on Tuesday morning & I can honestly say absolutely everything has gone smoothly since the moment she was born ( I feel gifted )

Im exclusively breastfeeding & I plan to continue like this up until the baby is at least 3 months old.

She feeds on average every 3 hours (sometimes a bit longer) but very rarely goes past the 4 hr mark, unfortunately Im now starting to feel "the heat" you could say on my nipples. She seems to latch on fine & I am continuously rubbing some lanolin gel over them to stop them from cracking as if this happens i might just resort to a formula fed routine.

During pregnancy I bought some nipple shields (from my local pharmacy) but im a bit hesitant to start using them just in case it puts her off feeding so well or something.

Even though this is my 2nd child it's my 1st of experiencing the use of nipple shields.

Does anyone have any advice, or has used nipple shields in the past, how did you & baby get on?

Thanks in advance

[DrFluffy]

Try them and see how you get on. Everyone is different. My experience of nipple shields is using them at night to stop the pain from my nipples against my night shift when I had untreated thrush ! Sam did feed through them a few times, feels really odd but he seemed to have a normal feed xxx

[Allyemo1985]

Never tried them I suffered through the pain. If your nipples do crack use your breast milk to rub into them and air dry off as much as you can. I did use some cream but baby didn't like the taste. Its tough the first 2/3 weeks it gets easier and becomes painless in most cases. X

[BubbaG]

This is my first time BF and I must say I nearly quit after the first couple of days as it was so so painful but I stuck with it and used a balm, I guess there is no wrong or right, try the shields maybe at night like DrFluffy says, that way you are giving them time to heal a little bit. then put baby back on breast in the morning. it is all trial and error I guess. xx

[xanon]

I've only ever had pain really when we had thrush so never considered shields and EBF your lucky getting 3 hours. My LO is 13 weeks and sometimes still feeds every hour, although she has slept about 6-7 hours on a night from being a few weeks old and will go 8-9 now. Going 3 hours is really good!