Thanks for the encouragement ladies.

Firstly... I made it to 6 weeks... YAAAAAAY!
Secondly - Kmn, I was booked into a lactation clinic at Mitcham Private but it got cancelled and there were no other dates offered, so I ended up going with the private LC instead... so I think we'll keep doing that for the moment, but good to know re Jesse Mac.
Jennifer13 - you are so right I WAS/AM doubting myself. Have resolved to do a couple of things...
Firstly - believe in myself (no doubting the belfie!)

Secondly - put up or shut-up. I really want to be less stressed about this... either it works and we attach well or we bottlefeed... happily! I don't want to put myself through the ringer about this. I've been doing bottle feeds overnight and expressing as I'm finding that we're much more efficient and happier doing that. If I was attempting the BB's unsuccessfully THEN bottle THEN expressing it was taking YONKS! (and I was getting upset). Now in the daytime we're trying the BB's and we both have a better success rate and less upset on my part.

Thirdly - spoke to my LC today (I'd been procrastinating ringing her). She's coming out next week and we'll try some shield-less attaching. BF'ing is really really inconsistent at present. Just when I'm despairing (and post here!) suddenly we'll have awesome feeds for a few days... but overall our trend of BF'ing versus bottle is going the wrong direction which is not what I was expecting/hoping for at this stage. He tends to leak lots of milk when he's feeding, no matter how well he seems to be attached! The nipple is good shape, the position is good, he's happy - I can't seem to attach him any better.. but he's dripping milk out the side (which suggests he's NOT attached well). Plus he's a very snuffly/snorty baby so I don't know if that's playing a part with how he's feeding - I feel he's opening his mouth to breath and dribbling lots. So my LC is going to look at that. Plus he's sometimes had ages on the breast then is still hungry and getting frustrated so I can't get him back on happily, then we end up doing top-ups. But on the bright side, I'm really starting to realise that the bad patches don't last for ever (even though the good patches don't either haha!) so everything passes and that helps me to feel less stressed.

Eep this is turning into my blog at this rate! But thanks for reading and the support. We're hanging in there! (oh and the TMI stuff is getting better too, so that's good).