Hi Carmen

Although I've already posted, I'm going to reiterate some of what Barb says. If you have your parents staying with you, take advantage and concentrate on feeding if that's what's concerning you most. You haven't said too much about how you felt about your breastfeeding experience but my hospital attempts were quite traumatic and the nurses were quite invasive. For me, as Barb says, expressing seemed like a great idea at the tiime - my baby would still get the benefits of breastmilk and I wouldn't have to go through the trauma of breastfeeding again. However, as time goes on, expressing becomes more difficult. If you are fearful about the actual breastfeeding experience, please speak to someone at ABA or post on here again. By the way, the ABA are very good listeners - they know that breastfeeding can be difficult - if it all came perfectly naturally there would be no reason for them to exist!

No-one actually explained to me that to build up a decent supply of milk, you're meant to be expressing about eight times a day even if your baby only wants five or six feeds a day (Barb please correct that if it's wrong). At first, I could express what she needed for her feeds but as time went on, my supply went down and meanwhile, she needed more. So I always felt like I was playing catch-up. Also, while your baby is a newborn, she's not very interactive but when she gets older, you will want to play with her and not want to be spending up to five hours per day expressing as I was. So, if at all possible, if you would like her to have breast milk it's best to jump back on the breastfeeding horse while you can. I expressed for two months and believe me, you don't want to do that if you can avoid it. It's too hard.

Carmen - please don't feel guilty because you're having difficulties breastfeeding or settling your baby - that's pretty damn common. But if you do feel like you're getting depressed and if you don't feel that there's any improvement, then please keep posting and/or seek additional help.