I'm now recovering mostly from my skinned nipples and hideous pain from last week - thanks to those that suggested things to read/watch/try. I've done all of that and mostly fixed latch on issues, and also graduated to side-lying feeds at times which helped! Also baby-led attachment has helped especially on one side where I have an odd facing nipple!

Now I guess my questions is more along the lines of what's "normal". My nipples are still a little pink right on the top, rather than all over and swollen like before. Should they return to not be at all pink or is it normal for them to look a little pinkish?

Is it also normal to have good BF days and bad, good feeds and bad? I can now get sometimes a perfect latch, enjoy it, no pain, all wonderful. Then have feeds where the latch changes as bub shifts around and it gets better sometimes, worse others and the reason is somewhat of a mystery.

Is a tiny bit of nipple compression at times okay if there is no pain from it, or should every feed have no compression at all?

I also have feeds, especially at night, which can still be quite painful since bub wakes with a cry, starving and is in such a rush to get on he just will not calm down and get a pain free attachment and will scream and thrash around if I try and break him off to start again. At 3am I usually end up in tears if I try over and over to fix it cause I'm tired with no patience so sometimes I just let him feed. Any suggestions?

Thanks!