I'm a FTM but I thought I would share for some encouragement to new moms like me.

Baby girl was born via general anesthetic c section on 2/3. I made it clear to my nurse that I wanted to latch asap after surgery. She took this to heart and helped me right after, though I was still so groggy from the anesthesia I don't remember it. Must have been a horrible latch though because I woke up the next morning with my right nipple already in a lot of pain.

The Hospital(a nurse) provided a nipple shield, but the next day an LC told me not to use it. Through my stay at the hospital, I was feeding with no nipple shield and a lot of discomfort. The LCs were not super helpful, as all they would do was throw baby on the boob and then walk out of the room. They didn't provide much guidance or support. I actually got better help from my nurses.

On day 2, the pediatrician recommended we supplement with a little formula, as baby was losing a lot of weight and she was insatiable, but my milk hadn't come in yet. After hesitation, we supplemented with formula using the s&s method. That same day, I also caved and gave baby a pacifier because i could not get her to stop crying.

By the time I was discharged, baby was 3 days old. This was the hardest day for me. My milk was starting to come in, and this made it incredibly difficult for baby to latch. My nipples were bleeding and had lines through them from the compression trauma of babys shallow latch. I broke down that day and let hubby give her formula from about 6pm that night through the next day, all in all about 3 bottles of formula. I showed him the pace feeding method, but knew that baby not wanting the breast was possible at this point. But I just needed a break.

The next day we saw the actual pediatrician(not the on call dr from the Hospital). She noticed that the baby had lost a lot of weight in the Hospital, but didn't push us to give up yet. She set an appointment to come back the next day just to Reweigh baby.

I left determined to make this work somehow. For some reason, I think out of desperation trying new things, watching YouTube videos how to latch, etc, I decided to try the nipple shield.

Literally since then everything has been perfect. Baby can latch and stay on without pain. The shield saved me. If it was not for that stupid thing I would 100% have given up.

Currently its day 9, my milk is completely in and baby is on track with gaining her weight back. We go back to the pediatrician today to see how much she weighs. We are at this moment doing s combo or pumping, breastfeeding, and some formula(though that is less and less every day). Baby is taking both bottle and breast amazingly well.

Now that we are headed in a healthy direction for baby, I can stop worrying and soak up this magic that is breastfeeding. It's hard, but you guys it's so amazing. If it's something you want, don't give up.