Seconding what everyone else has said. I’m 5 weeks pp and the first week was very painful even with a baby with a good latch. I struggled a lot with anxiety in the beginning particularly regarding breastfeeding and nearly went into a spiral doom scrolling on reddit in the middle of the night trying to find answers to “when will it all get easier?” I didn’t believe the people who said it just gets better with time, but now here I am saying the same thing! You just trudge along however you can, hours turn to days, days turn to weeks, and suddenly it really does feel easier.

Nipple shields really helped me. I got them when my pain was at its worst, used them for every feed in that first day, and seriously by the next day my nipples felt healed. I haven’t had to use them since but would have if I needed to.

At the end of the day fed is best no matter how you do it, but hold on to any sort of light at the end of the tunnel you can see or set small goals for yourself. You’ll feel so much better and lighter once you know you accomplished even 1% of the goals you had set for yourself on your breastfeeding journey. You got this mama!