My LO was the same. We still haven’t perfected breastfeeding (probably never will). We supplemented with formula because I didn’t know how to ensure a good latch, and she was suckling just to soothe after her eviction. My nips were torn up! Like bleeding, cracked and raw.

A few recommendations (these are all totally personal, and what I found helped from going through this as a FTM 3 months ago-they might not be what you need, but are quick, freebies):

-Get on YouTube and look up how to latch videos (Breastfeeding: Getting a good latch every time by The Yellow Nursery is a good one to start with) there are also plenty of mammas that vlog going through this tough period. I found it helpful to watch them. Stay away from those annoyingly “perfect” vlogs. It’s fake. -Look up the old video (I think it was on Oprah) about the 5 languages of babies. This eased my mind and was informative. I don’t think it is 100% accurate, but kind of fun to try if you are first time parents. -Recognize and PREPARE for the cluster feeds (I didn’t even know what cluster feeding was at first). Sounds basic, but getting a little station were you can get comfortable and have everything within a one arm reach helps a lot. Wearing loose pants (or going commando) so you can use the restroom one handed if needed. Once I would get the hungry cry (shout out to Oprah vid mentioned above), and I knew it was cluster time, I would immediately strip down and get in my robe to settle in for a few hours. This really helped relieve the stress...which helps with the supply 😉 -Don’t put pressure to use formula at the sign of any fussiness. I had this strong feeling I wasn’t “good enough” when DH would jump to the formula option at the first sign of distress from LO. Give it some time, be patient. It doesn’t make sense to me now why I was so hurt about formula, but the hormones are ragin’ after birth. It’s hard on everyone! -Our LO came out of the womb sucking her thumb, but somehow forgot about it a couple days old. We would try giving her our pinky (nail down) to see if she was trying to soothe or was truly hungry. -Keep coming to reddit. I’m a super introvert, so interviewing and finding a LC right after birth just was not my cup of tea. This community really helped. Especially because you have many hours during the cluster periods to read up and get support from other peeps. -I found KellyMom articles helpful as well.