Please can someone give me some advice as I've totally lost perspective here. I'm sorry that this post is long but I want to give you all the facts and I really want your advice.
Ok, the facts are: DD is 28.5 weeks old and I've just returned to full time work. I've been mixed feeding her for the last few months and she is well established on solids.
Even since she was quite small, I've been doing a lot of her breastmilk feeds as EBM. There are a few reasons behind this, including lack of confidence about breastfeeding on my part. I made mistakes in the first 6 weeks or so by allowing formula top ups (she was tiny, HV and others made me worry as she lost 15% of birth weight, I was scared of starving her). Looking back, I introduced bottles too early and it has compromised her interest in feeding from the breast directly. As a result, I have been pumping 4 or 5 times a day pretty much since she was around 6 weeks old.
Anyway, we muddled through and DD was having breastfeeds first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening with EBM and a bit of formula in between.
Without thinking too much about it, I put DD on faster flow teats once she was around 25 weeks old. Within one or two feeds she started rejecting the breast, despite having been happy to take teat or nipple until then. I persevered for a few days but she would be screaming with frustration and we would both become tense and flustered- so I ended up just giving up these morning and evening breastfeeds and doing by bottle instead. I kept regularly pumping and was producing around 15-18 ounces a day.
Last week, knowing I was going back to work this week, I dropped to pumping once a day. I'm doing this at around 10pm, after dinner. I had decided that I was going to keep up this "daily pump" for as long as possible but within a couple of days I find that I've started producing only 1 ounce at this pump. Maybe I'll just dry up totally soon.
So now I'm back at work full time and DD is in childcare for 11 hours a day (I work long hours). She's getting all of her care and attention from someone else. All she's getting from me is a measly 1 ounce of breastmilk a day. I wake her in the morning, give her a bottle, go to work, come home and give her a bottle before she goes to bed. It feels awful. I want to do more for her. I feel it was a mistake to give up on our morning and evening breastfeeds as at least it would give us some special time each day.
My questions are (and thanks for making it this far if you have ): with the breast rejection issue, is it too late to try and get back to at least one breastfeed a day? How could I do this without stressing DD out? Would it be worth trying to reintroduce breastfeeding for DD's sake or is there no difference to her in just having EBM instead? Is it realistic to think I could get my supply up again enough to do one feed a day without pumping during work hours (it's just not possible because of my job)? Most importantly of all, am I just being self-indulgent wanting to hold on to breastfeeding as special time with my daughter and should I just get over it and be glad that she's happy with things as they currently are? With the last question, I don't feel that way at all but I'm sure that a lot of people (e.g. my mother and probably DH) would tell me to just deal with the fact that DD has moved on and I need to as well.
I just feel really lost at the moment. Please help.