I did feed Jim on a routine when he lost weight. In the first couple of weeks I tried so hard to exclusively breastfeed, he would lose weight from sucking and community health were doing home visits to weigh him every day. One visitor would contradict the next one.

My milk came in late, I had literally an emergency caesar (arriving by ambulance) under GA, and also my relationship broke down literally with days, weeks of him being born. Also I had a bladder infection, which meant I was on antibiotics for ages and ages and ages.

I nearly made it to 3 months of comp feeding. At one point despite everything we got it down to a third of what the daily formula is on the can. But at the time my ex was creating more stress for me so I couldn't keep it up :-(

I managed to half ignore all the midwives, mchn's etc, TBH I feel looking back in hindsight I feel now that a lactation consultant are the best people to give advice. I had one free session as an outpatient, and someone later gave me free advice over the phone.

I went through a lot of extra pain, in order to breastfeed, I don't know if it was worth it or not, in some ways it gave me a great bond in the early days, which I'm not sure I might have had in the circumstances of Jim's birth.