Sorry this came out longer than I intended. My son is four and a half months old and so far has been exclusively breastfed, but we’ve always had to use a nipple shield to get him to latch (due to my inverted nipples). In the first weeks and months I tried unsuccessfully to wean him off of it. He could start with the shield and then if he unlatched I could sometimes get him back on without it but he would usually then get frustrated so I just resigned myself to using it and stopped trying to switch. Lately he’s started grabbing the exposed edge of the shield while nursing and has pulled it off several times. A few of those times he pulled it off and then latched on without it but it wouldn’t ever last very long. Tonight he woke up and I decided to try to soothe him back to sleep without nursing so I didn’t take the nipple shield in the nursery with me. He wasn’t having it so I figured I’d offer nursing without the shield and see what happened. He latched right on and nursed all the way back to sleep!!! I could cry I’m so happy!!! I’m planning to try this throughout the day and see if we can’t get rid of the shield for good!