Congratulations 
to all the new mums!
I haven't been able to catch up. Lack of time and also my concentration skills are so bad that I forget what I'm reading as I'm scrolling down the page.
But I thought I'd share with you my breastfeeding saga - in case it helps anyone. It's helped me to read what you all have been going through, good and bad. Okay, here comes the rant/info-dump!:
MnipJnr had skin to skin immediately after c-section and breastfed exclusively for the first five days. I was smug and overjoyed, and felt like a real milk machine. I could even brush my teeth while breastfeeding.
What I was ignoring was the fact that my nips were getting more and more painful. I put it down to the fact they were 'toughening up', and I fed through the pain. Midwives (albeit not breastfeeding specialists) said my latch was fine and said that pain was normal. A couple said 'ooh it shouldn't be painful' but didn't suggest anything to make it less painful. I was on strong painkillers at the time too.
By days 4-5 it felt like needles were being put through my nipples. One was actively bleeding. I ended up staring at the clock, fearing the time MnipJnr would wake up and want milk. And once he had a feed, there was no guarantee as to how much time we would have before he wanted the next one.
By the day 5 weigh-in, MnipJnr had lost too much weight. The doctors in A&E said that when he was sucking at the empty boob, he was losing more energy than he was consuming. They put us on a strict routine of 20-30min of breastfeeding followed by formula top up.
For two days we just gave formula and expressed milk - we needed to give my nipples a chance to heal. We got some sleep and started to enjoy feeding time again.
In the meantime, we had two visits from breastfeeding support workers, and improved MnipJnr's latch. He just wasn't opening his mouth wide enough, and I wasn't smacking him onto the breast fast enough. It's got better, but isn't perfect. He flails his arms around and throws his head back, and shows very little instinct for the nipple.
Anyway, now he's back to 10-20 min per boob, then about 40-60ml of formula, in 3 hour cycles. The latch is much less painful, although the 5 min wrestle before each latch is very frustrating.
My priority now is to go back to breastfeeding exclusively by increasing supply. I might never be able to do this, now I've introduced formula. But I think we made the right decision because it meant I've enjoyed these first weeks with baby instead of merely 'surviving' them. And his weight/health was more important than my desire to breastfeed.