I always keep up with this thread but don't often have the hands to post! Just wanted to share my expressing story with Frenetic . I also really wanted to breastfeed at the start but DS wouldn't latch at all. We spent the 3 days I was in hospital after birth trying and then I promised I would continue trying when I got home. However, I'd been really ill in the week leading up to me being in hospital, in hospital for a week overall with very little sleep, lost 2200mls of blood during the birth, been in theatre with general anaesthetic to have my placenta removed and was still having issues with my blood pressure. So basically I was on my arse and was really struggling to have the motivation to try and keep shoving my nipple in my crying baby's mouth. Plus DS was only 5lb 5oz at birth and had gone down to under 5lb afterwards and therefore I just wanted him to eat. I decided then to just carry on expressing instead and give up on the idea of breastfeeding. I managed 5 weeks of exclusive expressing and a week of combined feeding and then DS has been fully formula fed since.
Everyone will tell you that expressing is bloody hard work. I didn't struggle with supply at all, in fact it was so painful getting my milk to dry up. But it's so time consuming and the more demanding your baby gets the more difficult it will be to feed them, wind them, change them, entertain them, soothe them, express, cook, clean, wash, sterilise, sleep etc etc etc! I felt so guilty when I started with the formula but it's really changed my life. I was so down when I was expressing and felt stuck in the house, where as now I have miles more time and can go out so much easier. Not to mention can have longer in bed whilst DH feeds DS. I also hated the filling up pain, engorgement and leaking! You may well find you can manage to express for a lot longer than me so massive good luck to you, but don't beat yourself up or be afraid to admit if you're finding it hard.
I personally have found that you get so much pressure to breast feed that you feel like an absolute failure if you can't manage it for whatever reason, but everyone is different and the most important thing is that you are a good mother to your child and are able to look after them to the best of your ability and for me, stopping expressing helped me to do that. Don't beat yourself up if breast feeding doesn't work and focus on the positives like no mastitis, cracked nipples, thrush, cluster feeding for hours on end and feeding every hour or so! Oh and you can eat and drink what you want and actually take medication when you're ill! I'm absolutely convinced that formula fed babies don't suffer (I was FF after 4 weeks and I'm pretty healthy!). Formulas are so well balanced with loads of nutrients in and if they were as bad as people like to make out they wouldn't be available. Brands like cow and gate have been on the market for absolutely ages.
Anyways long ramble over. Good luck to you :)