I haven’t posted on here for over a year but I saw your post and wanted to send you a reply as I really feel for you.
First of all, congratulations on being pregnant again. It should be a happy time and I’m sorry you feel worried about feeding.
There is all sorts of breastfeeding evangelical nonsense out there and I hope you get some helpful, practical advice to help you with your concerns. If you really want to breastfeed there is help available via children’s centres and NCT and your local health centres and also from lactation consultants etc if you can manage to see one. You don’t say you want to breastfeed, but I assume from your message that you probably do, or are worried if you can’t. There is help out there. Speak to your GP (or midwife, or health visitor), find other mothers in your community who can help share their experiences, see a breastfeeding counsellor - do your homework with them before the baby comes and, when the baby has come, insist the midwives help you and watch you feed.
I wanted to share with you my experience of feeding my two babies in case it makes you feel better and to help get it into perspective. Because it is about perspective, but that’s really hard to remember when you’re trying to get a hungry baby latched and you’re dog tired, and you have a toddler to be up with in the morning etc.
I struggled to feed my daughter when she was born. She seemed to latch ok but not get enough milk and no matter how long we spent at it, she lost weight and seemed unsatisfied. I like you struggled on with pumping and stressing about it, also giving formula then hating it because it felt like it compromised my chances of feeding, then feeling guilty that I was trying to achieve some sort of breastfeeding award when actually my baby was just hungry and a bottle would have been just as good if not better than breastfeeding, which just wasn’t working. After 5 months of sitting on the sofa, crying, feeding then pumping then bottle feeding then hating myself I decided I wanted to enjoy maternity leave and my baby was much happier and more settled with formula. I didn’t look back. As the hormones settled once I stopped feeding, I realised how utterly obsessed and irrational I had become about feeding and it was a hormonal thing - something I couldn’t see at the time but everybody else kept telling me.
With my son, I really hoped it would be easier and at first it was. He seemed better at it and I suppose I’d had some practice. But at 4 weeks he seemed insatiably hungry and I couldn’t keep him satisfied - he lost weight and I was back in a dark place. I came close to post natal depression over it. Again - hormones. Even though I knew from my experience with my daughter I would get past it, I would still sit and sob on the floor clutching the breast pump, dreaming of being able to leave the house and enjoy my baby. When I gave up breastfeeding him at 7 weeks I was so sad. I felt I had failed. But three weeks later my baby had gained weight, was settled, smiling, and I could finally let go of the breastfeeding thing. Now it seems absurd I was so upset about it.
I’m telling you this because it sounds like breastfeeding might have been hard for you (I think it’s hard for lots of people) and you shouldn’t blame yourself or let it define your role as a mother. You role is to love you baby and of course feed them - breastfeeding is great if you can do it, but bottles are also great if you can do them too/instead. Don’t let it dominate your thoughts during pregnancy or after your baby comes. Try to keep it in perspective and remember this. Sometimes it’s so easy to forget and to feel alone with it.
I should add my children are now 1.5 and 3.5 and my God they are like racehorses - healthy, strong, tall, full of energy. I used to worry they’d be sickly and weak because of formula (!). That could not be further from the truth!
Good luck, OP.