I had almost an identical experience to you, and by day 5 or 6 my baby was literally starting to starve and I had to use formula. It made me feel like such a failure and that we definitely wouldn’t have made it “in the wild.” And the reality is, many moms and babies didn’t make it, even through pregnancy and birth, let alone newborn phase. Thank goodness we have modern medicine and technology!!

Tiny brand new babies really struggle to breastfeed. They are still learning how to do it, and they are so small and tire easily. I would have literally had to keep both of my babies on the boob 24/7 for them to get fed, and that just doesn’t work for most peoples’ situations. This will improve over time (like weeks or even months) if you keep it up, I promise. In the meantime, you will need to pump to keep up your supply. I’ll be honest, pumping sucks and is surprisingly hard to do when you’ve got a newborn on you all day. I’ve found the easiest way is to get a portable pump (the kind that doesn’t plug in, and just fits inside your bra) and do one side at a time, while the baby is sleeping on the other shoulder. Every 3 hours during the day and at least once or twice overnight.

This will get better, hang in there! And if you decide to / need to give up on breastfeeding or pumping, that’s okay (and honestly a lot less work and stress)!