When Do I Stop?

I always said I would try breastfeeding. When I was pregnant I wasn't determined to breastfeed but it was something I said I would try and if it worked then great, if not then it wasn't the end of the world. However it worked for us and it worked well... Until now.

I will be going back to work mid January and I'm starting to consider that breastfeeding will no longer work for us. Some babies when they are on 3 meals a day naturally begin dropping feeds, Logan is not one of these babies. He can go 3-4 hours between feeds but he hasn't dropped any of his feeds yet and I don't see it happening any time soon. 

Going back to work will include early starts for me, which means I'll leave for work before Logan wakes up and there will be days that I won't be back till after he goes to bed (this one doesn't sit well with me) but both means I won't be consistently available to do is first or last feeds.

I tried expressing when I first left the hospital but I never seemed able to produce what I needed. If I expressed first thing in the morning I'd be able to get up to 2 ounces but any other time I would struggle to get even 1oz. Logan gets 1 bottle of formula in the evening and he can usually finish a 6oz bottle. This mean I'd need to pump every morning at 6am for 3 days just to get enough for one feed. It would take me 2 weeks to get enough for one day! It's just not practical. 

However the biggest crux is: he can't fall asleep on his own. Every night and at his morning nap he is fed to sleep and it's like waging a war to get him to fall asleep any other way because he doesn't know how to (which is totally our fault but we'll not get into that just now) He either needs rocked to sleep (even then that's not a sure fire way to get him to sleep and it can take forever) he can fall asleep in his pram (it can sometimes take him 4 seconds to fall asleep, sometimes it takes 40 minutes) but neither of these are practical ways to get him to sleep. I know the 'easy' answer is to train him to self soothe and fall asleep on his own but I know for as long as I breastfeed him that won't happen. 

So what do I do? For many reasons I don't want to stop breastfeeding,mainly: I enjoy it! Its that little bit of time that I know I can spend just me and my boy. It's cheap and easy, I don't need to worry about washing and sterilizing bottles or the expense of formula. Its there, ready to go and its free. Moreover I feel a bit guilty. Some mum's struggle with breastfeeding so much that they have to stop and here's me contemplating giving it up early but I don't see that I have many other options.

Do you have any suggestions? What did you so when you started back work? i'd love to hear.