Charting/TTC without a period

[Ava's Mama]

I have a 16 month old DD who I am still nursing 4-6 times a day. My period has not returned and I am following my DD's lead and doing CLW. My husband and I want to start TTC but I am not sure how to tell when my cycle is when I don't have a period. Does charting temperatures work when you don't have a period to verify it? I am not stressed about it and just want to get pregnant in the next year, but I am interested in learning more about this so that I have some idea what is going on with my body and when to take pregnancy tests!

[Jayray]

Some of the fertility books say to go ahead and chart while breastfeeding so you have some sort of baseline and can recognize when it changes. I didn't do it because my babe wakes A LOT at night and so I never had three solid hours of sleep before morning. I did sort of pay attention to my CM, but it was just weird. I got my first PPAF around 9 mo and then started charting CM, but still can't do temps because of the nightwakings.

From what I understand, it is relatively unusual (like only 5% of women?) to ovulate before you get your first period unless you wean abruptly or you don't get PPAF for a long time.

Anyway, I guess this doesn't really answer your question. Just thought I'd throw in my impressions.

[MaerynPearl]

If you are not getting your period, you are not having cycles and thus not ovulating. However, because you are BFing a baby who is over a year old, your fertility could return at any time so charting COULD give you an indication of it ahead of time. At least enough to tell you if you even have a chance of pregnancy and if so, when a test would tell you you are.

Of course, if you do not want the hassle of charting until you get your cycle back, you could simply just take a pregnancy test every 2 weeks until you either get a BFP or your AF (just in case you do catch the first postpartum egg, it happens!) then you can at least narrow down when it might have happened by the fact that you didnt have a positive pregnancy test 2 weeks before (so it could have been any time within the past month, a lot smaller timeframe than any time since she was born!)


if you do this, save money and use dollar tree tests and do not trust a faint line on them. just test again in two weeks. they like to give faint lines when not pregnant... if you use one test every 2 weeks it will only be about $26 per year to ensure that you do not miss a pregnancy... and likely less than that if you do not get pregnant before your first period shows up. Ive seen MANY women say they get their first around the time little one hits 24 months.

[Ava's Mama]

So, if you don't have a cycle while breastfeeding without a period, that means that all the nursing mama's who never had a period happened to catch the first egg? That is pretty amazing!

[HulaJenn]

You could chart before getting your cycles back, but if you are CLW who knows how long it could go on for. I'd be more inclined to watch for secondary symptoms like increased sexual desire and EWCM to indicate the possible return of fertility, and then start temping after you get your first AF back. If you do catch that first PP egg, then you would likely have other symptoms (especially if still BFing) like drop in milk supply or sore breasts, but like Mae said, you could take a random pg test every so often too.
Good luck!