First days out with newborn

[DietCokePlease]

We have been going a bit stir crazy during Covid- I've been pregnant and had our lovely baby end of June, although it was a quite stressful birth and made harder with Covid. Through the whole time (March till now) DH and I have been isolating just to keep safe, so not been into any shops or public spaces at all, or seen anyone in person. We have gone for a walk each day but not made contact with others.

We are now at the stage where we feel ready to cautiously do a few things and also we feel ready to go out with our newborn who is now 6 weeks and doing well. Mainly for ourselves (as I'm sure baby won't really notice) to alleviate boredom and make up for the fact there'll be no holidays this year.

We live in London and don't have a car although we do have use of a hire car (deep cleaned) if needs be. DH has a few days off around the bank holiday. We were planning on driving to a nice local woods and going for a longer walk one day. Any other tips or ideas for things we could do that are safe, and also do-able with newborn, as a first "outing" for us as new parents?

Kew Gardens is a great day out. There are toilets andbaby changing within easy reach of all the main attractions. The gardens are mostly level and the paved paths are smooth and wide. There’s level or ramped accessto most of the buildings. You can warm bottles in the microwaves at some of the cafes, or if you BF there are lots of private spots in the gardens.
The London Wetland Centre is another favourite pushchair-friendly day out. There are two main nature trails and the paths are firm and flat. There are lots of benches along the trails. The cafe has large spaces between the tables for a pushchair and there are changing facilities in the disabled toilets.

There's very little you can't do with a newborn provided you're comfortable using a sling/carrying them. Do something you will enjoy; your lo won't remember any of it and won't need entertaining at this age.

My baby is 5 weeks and has been unable to latch since birth sadly, due to various reasons, including a traumatic hospital stay where we were separated for a night. It's been horrible but we are safe and sound now. I am currently expressing and bottle feeding him expressed breast milk using paced bottle feeding technique. I have to top up with a bit of formula for some feeds as I can't express quite enough milk (it really varies throughout the day) and I do one whole bottle of formula a day as well. It is exhausting and I'm struggling to maintain the relentless routine, even though I really want him to have breast milk. DH is supportive and helps a lot, but of course he can't pump for me!

Around the pumping and the feeding, I'm also continuing to try him on the boob as much as possible. Again this gets tiring as he cries and I feel bad. (I have had a lot of intervention here from LLL and lactation consultant). The main advice now is to keep trying him on the boob, keep doing skin to skin etc.

All in all I go through days where I feel exhausted and so sad about the whole thing. If only he would just latch. I'm told it's not too late and to keep trying.

It's also tricky to know if he's feeding too much. He's putting on quite a lot of weight after an underweight start, and I sometimes worry it's too much, but the guidance on quantities for express bf plus formula is so opaque- it's usually just for one or the other.

Anyway, just looking for some shared experiences really, or some words of wisdom or support.

Worries I have are:

• how do I organise skin to skin into my daily schedule more easily? Getting him undressed usually makes him cry as he hates getting changed and then I feel like I've made him distressed. I am doing one bath together with him each day which is nice.
• what is a good pumping and feeding schedule for me? I feel like I'm always catching up and never on top of this. Is it possible to maintain this to keep my sanity?
• am I feeding him too much milk overall? How do I know?
• what else can I do?

Sorry posted on wrong thread