I had some similar issues when my LO was your age! It was so difficult, and caused frustration, tears, self-doubt, etc.! I could never tell if my LO wasn't taking enough out which caused slow weight gain and hurt my supply, or if my supply was too low for my LO to take enough out. It became this circular chicken-and-egg problem and I'm not sure a solid answer was ever reached. Maybe it was a combo of things. I do know that after meeting with an awesome LC things started to improve, slowly but surely, and I hope things get better for you. I remember some advice from my LC that I've shared elsewhere on the boards. I started taking fenugreek, alfalfa AND blessed thistle capsules (sold at Sprouts - number of capsules per instructions on the bottles - I took 3x/day).
I also had repeated problems with painful plugged ducts (some women just do, apparently) and my acupuncturist recommended taking this brand of lecithin capsules:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00013Z1QE/...B1_cs_sce_dp_1 . It worked WONDERS! I still take them twice a day (1x/morning & night) and they have kept the duct problems at bay. I started getting cavalier about not taking them about a month ago, and lo and behold the problems came back, so I went back on them for now. I also drank chamomile tea to help with inflammation.
His latch also sometimes caused me real pain and we had to work on it for many weeks. He was checked by a specialist for tongue-tie and that apparently wasn't the issue. I tried to be patient, diligent and consistent (and gentle, obviously!) in encouraging a good latch because I noticed it would lessen the pain over a day's nursing and slowly things started to get better until he had no latch problems at all by a few months. The LC watched him latch on and saw that he could do it most times but would sometimes lose positioning. And he often did flutter sucking rather than swallows in the beginning.
You could also try giving your LO expressed milk via french tube (connected to syringe bottle) at the breast. The LLL book "Womanly Art of Breastfeeding" has info on this, and/or your LC should be able to tell you how to do this. I have to say it is a PITA but it did seem to help with my LO's weight gain to supplement this way for a little while in the early weeks. And it's apparently better to keep them on the breast stimulating milk production rather than switching over to bottle, if possible. When we did start using a bottle, we used low-flow nipples. My LC recommended First Years Breastflow bottles, size 1 nipples. The advice I've heard is that any time you give a bottle, you should pump so that your supply doesn't take a hit.
I hope this helps! I wish it wasn't so hard for some of us mamas in the beginning ... but you WILL get through it!
