I'm in a similar position, so also watching this for tips - I return to work on Monday (eek!) and my 10 month old DS refuses to eat solids and won't take milk from bottle or cup. On one occasion in the past he waited wait 7-8 hours for my return rather than give in while I was out. Since I'm going to have to be apart from him for 12 hours each day, I'm rather worried about how he'll cope.
With him it is a matter of won't rather than can't. He caught onto the idea of drinking water from a cup very quickly (2-3 days), and will drink water from any type of cup whatsoever, but somehow the idea of milk from anything other than the breast just does not compute.
I am however (cross fingers) hoping that I may just be making some progress on milk. It occurred to me last week that he associates milk with snuggles, comfort and above all me. I have therefore started offering him a valved cup or bottle at bedtime (to minimise leakage) - I follow his usual ritual, we snuggle up in our chair, however I keep my top pulled down and when he goes for the breast I push the bottle in his mouth instead. The first night he took about 20ml in 40 minutes. We are now on night three and he has taken 60ml and tonight he didn't try to push it away, although he didn't drink properly from it either, just chewing and occasional sips.
The advantage of this method is that whereas he would usually get upset and push the bottle away after a couple of tries, at bedtime he is relaxed and primed for milk and I can persevere much longer with him. I have kept our usual eye contact and have quietly reassured him that mummy's milk is here. Once he gets too tired/upset, I switch to the breast.