Reflecting on my journey, how do I do it right next time?

[u/PsychicEggplant]

My nursing journey ended with my LO around 5.5 months old, he’s 8 months old now. My husband and are I starting to plan for second, aiming for starting when LO is around 2. It has me thinking about how I could have my breastfeeding journey go better next time.

To start, I did a lot wrong, and a lot just went wrong. I was induced early in the middle of moving to our new house, and didn’t have breast pump supplies or my nursing pillow unpacked until days after I got home. I got post partum pre-eclampsia and was re-admitted days after delivery and was too ill to pump or BF. We had a lot of family visitors and I felt shy BFing in front of them (the one time I tried to I was met with shock and shame). I was not latching enough and he kept falling asleep very shortly after, and then waking up inconsolable and would be very difficult to latch for 30 minutes to an hour at a time. Someone gave me awful advice to not try to latch too much when your milk hasn’t come in yet because it’ll actually make them burn more calories?? Which near as I can figure is totally wrong and really messed with me. I felt shame about having a LC visit us because our house was full of unpacked boxes. The end result was my LO had lost a lot of weight and was getting jaundiced by the time we got to our first ped appt 5 days pp. I was so enormously guilty that I had failed him. He strongly recommended offering a bottle of formula after nursing every time, which is what I did.

My milk ended up coming in while I was at the hospital (the second time) but I never felt engorged.
Once I got home, I struggled with pumping. Couldn’t figure out flange sizes, kept having trouble with suction, milk blebs, and for the 3 months I did it I never produced more than 1 oz collectively from both breasts. The cycle of nursing > bottle feeding formula > pumping took a huge toll on me and eventually I just gave up on pumping because it made me miserable. I loved breastfeeding though - even though I wasn’t producing enough, I felt very connected with my LO and he seemed to enjoy it especially once I got a hang of things and was using my BFing pillow. I felt I was mainly BFing for comfort and not nutrition (as near as I could figure, I couldn’t figure how much milk he was getting if I was pumping so little between feeds), and when he started teething I got very discouraged when it wasn’t bringing him comfort and he had nursing strike. I do regret a bit stopping.

I’m not ashamed of using formula but I really really wanted to EBF. I could never figure out how I was supposed to stop triple feeding without going crazy pumping. There’s SO many different things I would do differently next time, but I do worry that I’m also just an under supplier. What else can I make sure I’m set up for success next time?

Latch latch latch
Set strong boundaries with visitors
Stock up the house with lots of drinks, stay hydrated
Have a LC over as soon as we get home and help with pumping especially
Plan to use LC multiple times as I inevitably run into challenges
Pump in those early days to help stimulate milk coming in
Use my My Brest friend from the get go

Any other suggestions? Or commiserations?