What do you think triggered your first PP AF?

[aphel]

Just curious.

Was it nightweaning? Introducing solids? Pumping/being away from baby for a certain amount of time? Or just one of those random things? And how old was your LO at the time?

I'm interested to see!

[Buzzer Beater]

 DD was 4 months old... just random. No changes at all in our routine.

[katelove]

Random for me too. Also 4 months, no routine changes and J was feeding hourly overnight!

ETA - Buzzer Beater, I just noticed that your DD2 was born the day after J 

[jenmn]

Nightweaning at 18.5 months.

[HonkyTonka]

Moving babe into her own room at 6 months. (could have been coincidental...)

[desertgirl01]

Ovulation, lol.   Nothing different at 9 months...babe had started solids 3 months earlier, sleep patterns and location the same, no decreases in breastfeeding or pumping. 

oh my, this is my first time posting in this new format.  My new, automatically generated avatar is beautiful! 

[memz]

My DD starting to sleep through the night at 12 months...my first PP AF started last week at 13 months. So I went from nursing every 1 1/2 to 2 hours to her sleeping for 11-12 hours!

[blessed.mommy]

Ben started sleeping in his own room (at the beginning of the night) when he was 6 months.

Started solids at 6 months.

He's 14 months old and we're still BFing...whenever he wants, most of the time now he'll sleep through the night without wanting to nurse.

I had my first PP AF when Ben was 13 months old, so I think it was just a random thing because there wasn't any drastic changes to his BFing schedule. 

[happysmileylady]

My now 2 yr old began STTN on her own at just 4 weeks old.  I did ABSOLUTLY no sleep training at all.  Actually, she was a coliky baby during the day, she usually started up around 4 or 5 pm and screamed almost constantly, only taking occasionally breaks to nurse for 5 to 10 minutes, until around midnight or 1 am.  But then, she slept for at least 6 hours, and slowly extended that time, until she was sleeping from around midnight until around 10am.  She was probably just exhausted from all the screaming.  She stated this all around 4wks, my first pp AF showed at 8wks. 

With my current dd, I may or may not have had AF yet.  She STTN about 50% of the time.  I had PP bleeding for about 6 wks, then 2wks later, some spotting that I thought was AF but it only lasted a day or two.  Then I got a Depo shot, and about 6 wks after that (which was about 16 wks PP) I had 2wks of bleeding again.  It could have been AF or it could have been breakthrough bleeding from the Depo.  I have heard horror stories of 6+ weeks of bleeding from Depo (and will probably not be going back for my next injection.)  So I don't know if I have had AF or not. 

[Adamsmama]

It seems to happen around 4 months after baby starts sleeping through the night (12 hours) ... so, for us it is night weaning.

[secondimpression]

DS was 4.5 months and I'd started antibiotics that I had an allergic reaction to the day before. That seems a little far-fetched for a trigger, but I'm at a loss to otherwise explain it. He nursed at least every 2 hours at night and I pumped 3 times at work and he wasn't on any solids. The abx/allergy was the only sudden change.

I'm 7.5 months PP with DD and still no AF in sight. She's been STTN in her crib (8+ hours) since 3 weeks, started self-feeding solids at 4 months and regularly goes 3-4 hours between nursing during the day. The best explanation I have for the lack of AF this time is that I'm a SAHM and DD has never had a bottle or been spoon fed (she refuses both).

[Mosaic]

I think it was sleeping through the night. DD1 slept solidly through the night at 10 months, and my cycles came back at 8-9 months, when she was getting up just once or twice. DD2 is still getting up 2-3 times a night, so at 1yr my cycles haven't come back yet. (FWIW, we don't cosleep AND I WOH full-time.)

[BirthIsAwesome]

I just got my first pp AF back today, 5 months and 6 days after birth. It was totally random, I'm still nursing 3 times at night, co sleeping, and following all the ecological breastfeeding rules to the letter...all of them! So I'm kinda bummed it came back already and am hoping that I'll have a few non-fertile cycles before regulating. 

[Juise]

Random both times. Came back at 3 months PP with DD1, who never went more than, at most maybe an hour and a half, without nursing, and with DD2 I hadn't even finished with the postnatal bleeding before I got my first period, 3 weeks or so PP, which did NOT make me  happy person.

[aphel]

Thanks for chiming in everyone!

Well, I think I was hoping this thread might help me figure out when to expect my own first pp AF, but clearly there seems to be a lot of variation out there! When I originally posted this, I was going back to school and worried that my absence (about 4 hour chunks at a time) and a few bottles a week might trigger it. It hasn't . . . .