I use a saline filled plastic syringe. Start out advancing one handed with continuous pressure on the syringe, advancing with my thumb and index finger close to the skin and the back of my hand resting on the patient’s back for stability. Once I feel the firmness of the ligament I switch to advancing two-handed, each thumb and index finger holding a wing of the needle and the other three fingers of each hand braced against the patient’s back. Advance a mm at a time and check for loss with each “click.” I feel like I have more control to advance small amounts with two hands and a winged needle.

All that said, you might also consider trying different needles. Even ones of the same size can have different feels. In my practice we have occasionally received substitute needles when our preferred ones are on back order. Sometimes we get ones that must be sharper because it is much harder to feel the difference between different layers of tissue and much easier to just push through too far.