GL with whatever turns out to be right for you and your bubba. A happy mumma = a happy bubba, dont let anyone and their judgemental ways try to tell you otherwise.
Tams, the fact that you had a LC at your place every day for three weeks suggests to me that you encountered major problems and you tried your very best to make it work. Under those circumstances, it's completely understandable that it wasn't very enjoyable.
Do you know if those same problems are likely to recur? It might be completely different second time around. Or, as it was in my case, you might hit exactly the same problems second time around.
Briefly, with DD1, I tried to BF in the hospital, attachment was very hit and miss, she lost too much weight and I was FF, expressing and giving top-ups when I went home and continued to do that for two months. Trying to attach had been hideous in the hospital.
However, no-one gave me an explanation about why DD1 was hard to attach - I just thought it was my lack of education, knowledge so went in to it with DD2 more confident and knowing where I could find help. However, I was also less paranoid about giving formula because DD1 is such a picture of health. So I was determined to be more relaxed about it and not beat myself up if it didn't work.
EXACTLY the same thing happened with DD2. The first few days were OK until my milk came in and she found it really difficult to attach. Lost lots of weight. Panic stations. Expressing, expressing, expressing. Saw a LC when I got home who just said to keep trying. Excuse me, but if I haven't got the hang of it after trying eight times per day for three weeks, then 'keep trying' is not very constructive advice, especially when you're worn out from expressing and top-ups too. So I stopped because I could not understand how I could possibly get DD2 to BF when I had been trying for three weeks and attachment would maybe work once a day tops.
A few weeks after I stopped feeding/expressing, I randomly came across some information that actually made sense. I have very large nipples. It's really as simple as that. Attaching when my DDs were so little was really difficult. The midwives could do it, the LC could do it, but I couldn't. Plus, because I was expressing using machines that made my nipples really sore, I was probably a bit timid when it came to attachment too.
So anyhow, I tried to attach again when DD was about seven weeks old and it was as easy as pie. So it wasn't anything to do with my technique and there was nothing wrong with DD's mouth. She just had to get bigger so she could fit my nipple into her mouth. By the time I felt confident that maybe I could attach her, she was nine weeks old and I hadn't fed her or expressed for six weeks so we went down the relacatation path and had some success (that's another story).
So look, I would say have a think about what exactly happened last time. Were you given any explanations about what was going on and is it likely those things will recur? Secondly, if things go swimmingly, you might not want to put a six-week deadline on it as that could be the point at which it becomes really easy/enjoyable.
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