Well if you think you are a useless mother, then we are all too I would say!! Because everything you describe happens to every mother at some stage..if not every day! You are most definitely not useless..You are a new mum trying to figure out the best way to deal with juggling the feeding, comforting and sleeping of your little one- and it's tough!
So you know it does get better- that's a great start! Along with this, don't worry about what other babies do or dont do at the shops because in reality we all going through the same things a some point. I would also say just try and be flexible and open minded with your baby's feeding and sleeping. Honestly, this will do wonders (Except probably the opposite to what Ngala will tell you!!!!)
I'm sorry you are feeling so low. The first 6 weeks with a new baby are *never* as we imagined them to be - they are hell. The learning curve is so steep. The interesting thing is from where we are all sitting you seem like a great mum. it sounds like you have had significant challenges with breastfeeding and have worked really hard to sort them out - you are nearly there. Your baby is sleeping well at night - that's great, but he's got to squeeze more feeds in during the day - they need at least 8 in a 24hr period (12 is pretty normal too!) so the payoff for good sleep at night is often frequent feeding during the day. There are a whole lot of myths around babies and sleep. Often babies do sleep in the pram when they are out - they love the movement. But I guarantee that all those babies will wake up as soon as mum pushes the pram over the threshold of her house. And few of them will sleep 8 hours at night - most will be waking 2 or 3 or more times until they are 6 mnths or older. As others have said, your sling will be your best friend - babies are designed to be close to mum. No baby is going to love being put down alone to sleep. (I don't even like sleeping alone) But they will settle close to you in the sling, and you can get a bit done around the house if you want to.
Join your local Australian Breastfeeding Association. They are great. You get to go along to their meet-ups and discussions, and you learn that no-one is really getting much sleep, and by and large all babies are pretty much the same. And you are doing a great job!
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