Sparkly, have posted earlier but just wanted to see how you were getting on...
sorry this is so long but thought I'd share my thoughts, even if they turn out to be irrelevant!
It could be a nursing strike. I've become well-versed in these lately since my DS3 has had loads and we're just on the end of a nasty two week period of 'striking' in which I really thought I was gonna have to give up BF... Today was the first day he had NO bottles of formula at all so I'm chuffed.
It might not be that at all but the 'angry with you/breast' sounds very familiar... Is he hungry but refusing to suck?
Does he glug the formula you've been offering down though? (ie he DOES want milk, he just doesn't seem to want it from you at the mo?)
If you think this is the case, I feel for you. Nursing strikes are tough, and after you've been through such a battle to BF it's disheartening. I felt awful for weeks.
But there's hope!
LLL advisors were brilliant on this. I know you said you didn't feel a letdown (this was why I asked) but for me, the slowness of the letdown seemed to be frustrating for my boy. So he'd suck for a shorter and shorter period each time he went back on and after 20 mins of battling he'd just give up.
So, if you think it is a nursing strike (and it might not be) here's what I know:
Standard advice is all the closeness/kangaroo care type stuff you prob already know about - skin to skin, baths together, cosleeping and just let him gradually get used to it again. Forcing it on him can make it worse.
IT can sometimes be caused by disturbance at the breast - parents shouting, baby biting and getting a reaction, noisy family (we've got all of these in our house!) or by teething or ear ache or other discomfort. Too fast weaning was also an issue for us...
The skin to skin stuff didn't help too much but here's what did:
Taking him off to feed him to a quiet dark place
Feeding him in the same place every time as much as feasible
Making feedings fun for long enough for him to stay in one place and be a bit 'distracted' while feeding - thanks to some lovely MNer for this suggestion - so we did a bit of gentle tickling and playing round and round the garden and this little piggy went to market and this seemed to cheer him up and he'd often go back to sucking a bit longer...
A genius idea - well it worked for me and my slow letdown - from the LLL. Do deep breathing before and as you start to feed. Do long slow outbreaths. Visualise counting backwards from 10, seeing the numbers coming towards you as you breath in and then away from you, long and slow as you breath out. Practise this every feed, in the same chair etc...
It works! The reason is the letdown whether or not you feel it is a conditioned response and this helped me to focus on something other than stressing about the feed. After some days, I found that I was getting to 7 or 6 before he was glugging rather than 2... It really helped me to feel it was making progress too.
And even if he does find formula bottles easier for now, my experience is it DOES NOT have to mean the end of BF at all, but you do need to help yourself get through a nursing strike as it's really really tough....