Lilly lots of
i'm not sure if i can answer all your questions, i'm just going off my own personal experience with my two kids ... Hopefully other mums here can fill in the gaps when they get a chance to read your post.
I think with feeding schedules, let baby lead you and let you know when she is hungry. With my newborn he can demand a feed every 30mins/1hr (cluster feeds during growth spurt), and within the same day he can go for a 3-4hr stretch until the nxt feed. I have read that you shouldn't let a young baby go more than 5 hours without a feed, but in my experience 3 or 4 hours is okay for us.
Regarding wet nappies, bothmy boys in the first 2-3 days didn't have many wet nappies at all, not during thecolostrum phase, it was only after my milk came in that this changed. In the first days, this little one only did about 2 sticky tar poo nappies a day. Has your milk come in yet or are you still producing colostrum?
About baby using you ad a opacifier and falling asleep at thebreast, i'm not entirely convinced it's a bad thing. If you can use your body to comfort your baby, i think it's just an extra tool at your disposal to keep baby happy. Often babies get milk drunk while at the breast, but i find my babies seem asleep with their eyes closed snd temporarily pause suckling, but then they resumeand still keep going (sometimes a single feed can be up to an hour). You will be thebest judge to know if your baby is drinking or just comfort sucking ... She will likely suck more vigorously if she's feeding and swallowing. But keep in mind when they're so young, bf can tire them out so they take short breaks here and there but itdoesn't always means they are done.
Please don't feel like you are worthless because that is so far from the truth. Breastfeeding is difficult and both mama and baby need time to gt the hang of it, but you can and will.
Also, i wantedto add to becareful about nipple confusion when introducing the bottle as baby couldstart establishing latch habbits that are not ideal with breastfeeding, or even refuse to latch etc. try to hang ithere, but having said that, if it iscausing you too much stress andheartache, noone can judge you for switching to bottle feeding whether with formula or expressed breastmilk. This is your personal choice to make for yourself and your family ... Don't let anyone else make you feel otherwise.
Maybe if baby is really upset, just cuddle and rock her until she settles a little and try latching later. A trick i found that works for us is to put my nipple on baby's top lip to get him to open his mouth, but not inset my breast in ntil his mouth is nice and wide. Hopefully is your babyhas her mouth wide open (and when she isn't crying), this could possibly work for you? I also sometimes pinch my breast/nipple together like it's a sandwich to help with the latch.
I'm sorry i wish i could help more.
) but the midwifes suggested when he wasn't latching on correctly to express into his mouth so he was still getting some colostrum (and milk when my milk came in) and this seemed to help. Also you can express into a sterile cup and feed this to baby (it does work) to ensure you're little one is getting some colostrum/milk. Be careful introducing a bottle if your baby isnt established in breastfeeding as like i said earlier it can really confuse baby and make it even more difficult to get breastfeeding going.
