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5 Tricks for Feeding with Flat Nipples

If you have flat nipples, then latching your baby can be a bit more challenging. In this blog, I’m going to tell you how to know if you really have flat nipples, why it's harder for babies to latch with flat nipples, and what you can do to make breastfeeding with flat nipples or chestfeeding easier.

Let’s start with what flat nipples are.

Flat nipples are nipples that are just short. They don’t stick out very far past your areola, and this is different from being *small*, which would be nipples that may have a narrow base but stick out far in relation to their size.

Flat nipples are 100% biologically normal and absolutely perfect for breastfeeding with flat nipples or chestfeeding, but they can make latching harder.

If you’re pregnant and reading this and have flat nipples, don’t worry. Plenty of babies can nurse with flat nipples without a problem, so you don’t need to write your nipples in as the villain in your story before your baby is even here. You just need to put an asterisk next to it, so you can keep it on your radar as a reason why, *if* it happens.

The reason flat nipples can make breastfeeding with flat nipples trickier is that when a nipple is short—especially if it’s *short and soft*—it sometimes doesn’t provide enough of a cue to your baby’s brain to tell it to turn on the sucking muscles.

If your baby’s brain doesn’t get that memo, they may go through some of the latching processes, but when it’s time to start sucking, they just don’t know what to do.

Then they might get frustrated and upset, and you get frustrated and upset, and everything everywhere all at once falls apart. The hungrier your baby gets, the faster this can happen.

So, it’s important to practice latching before your baby gets hungry. You want them to be willing to latch but not desperate for food. When your baby is calm and not yet hungry, you have more time and space to work through the process without the pressure of a hungry baby getting more upset.

So, what are you supposed to do if you have flat nipples and your baby is struggling to latch?

You just help their brain figure it out.

One of the best ways to make this process easier is to feed your baby when they’re not already hungry or upset. Feeding before your baby is desperate can give you extra time to work through the latching process in a calm environment. Think of latching as any other new skill, and practice it when everyone is calm.

In the sections below, I’ll help you understand how to do just that.

#1: Help the brain connect to the right muscles.

The first thing you need to do is to make it super clear to your baby’s brain that it’s time to suck. One of the best ways to do that is to make sure you are going through their reflexive "set list"—the step-by-step map the brain uses to organize and cue up the muscles needed to feed in the right order.

The set list of reflexes your baby uses during the latching process is: rooting to get the nipple aligned, seeking (or looking up) to get the chin planted, seeking to open wide, and then sucking. What you want to do is to make sure your baby is doing as many of these reflexes before that final sucking step as possible to set up the brain to know it's time to suck.

Sometimes, just this process is enough, because it helps their brain organize what to do—especially if you practice when you both are calm.

#2: Make your nipple firmer.

If your baby goes through those reflexive steps and still isn’t able to suck, the next thing you can do is to make your nipple feel firmer. The way to do this is by shaping your breast a little bit.

Gently squeeze your breast or areola if yours are a sand dollar size or bigger to make the nipple firmer. This is sort of like the "sandwich" you may have been taught, but you aren’t trying to make your breast smaller to fit into your baby’s mouth. You still want your baby's mouth to open wide.

The squeezing here is just to make your nipple firmer so that when your baby goes through their reflexive steps, the cue is stronger—like squeezing one end of a water balloon makes it firmer, too.

You’re going to do the same thing as before—getting your baby into position to help their brain go through the steps to find your nipple and organize to feed—but this time, you’ll shape your breast as they are latching.

Where you put your hands is specific to your anatomy, so it’s something you’ll need to experiment with. Don’t worry though, you can’t do this wrong. Latching is a collaborative relationship where everyone does their part, and we always want to empower your baby to do as much as they can.

The balance here is that the closer your hand is to your nipple, the firmer your nipple will be, but the more it may interfere with your baby’s mouth. So, you have to find the sweet spot. The goal is to work toward a latch where your baby comes to your body, rather than you putting your breast in your baby’s mouth.

#3: Help them organize their suck.

If you’ve helped your baby go through their feeding “set list” so they are organizing their brain AND shaped your nipple, and they still aren’t latching, then here are a couple more things to try.

You can try getting your baby into position and using your finger to help them suck. Once they’re sucking on your finger, you can offer them your breast. You can do the same thing with a bit of milk from a bottle, feeding them in the position close to your body.

#4: Add a little bit of milk.

You can also add a little extra help by using a syringe and dripping a few drops of milk down your breast while your baby is there. I love the curved-tip syringes for this because they sit flat against your breast.

The goal is to just drip a little bit of milk down to help your baby get the idea to start sucking. This works best with babies who are almost there and just need a little extra help.

With the syringe approach, you definitely need a second set of hands, and it’s only a little bit of milk. If you put too much, the whole area will be wet, and that can make latching harder.

#5: Experiment with a nipple shield.

If your baby still isn’t able to latch with any of the methods above, or if either of you is feeling upset in the process, you can experiment with using a nipple shield. Just make sure it’s the right one for your body.

Remember, you can experiment, and there’s no "wrong" for your baby. Latching isn’t a light switch—it’s a process you and your baby will figure out together.

Final Thoughts

No matter what your baby is doing, there is help available so you can have the latching and feeding relationship you want. There are many different things to try to help your baby’s brain learn how to latch and feed.

If your baby is struggling with latching or you’re using a nipple shield, you can also reach out to an IBCLC to help you figure out the roadmap for your baby.

If you’ve already reached out to an IBCLC and didn’t get the help you needed, that doesn’t mean there’s no help available. It simply means that the person you worked with didn’t have the right skills for your situation, and you deserve to find someone who is truly invested in helping you meet your goals—and you deserve the support you need.