Always wake up before alarm - when to temp?

[KM84]

Lately I always wake up well before my alarm goes off- sometimes by as much as an hour and a half. I fall back asleep right away, so I haven't really thought about it, but now I'm starting to think it'll affect my temping.

I try to temp every day at 8am, and if I wake up within a half hour of 8 I just temp right away, but I'm not sure what to do if I wake up at 6:30. I never get up that early, but I'm awake for a few minutes. Should I temp then? Or go back to sleep and temp when the alarm goes off for real?

[Jaimee]

Everyone is really different so you may have to experiment a bit to find out what works best for you.  But I will say that in general I would give the advice to temp as close to the same time as possible each morning, not worrying about how much sleep you had before it.  I have LO's that have been awful sleepers and at times I was often up every 90 minutes and would also have a drowsy nursing session just prior to actually getting up.  I always got a biphasic pattern.  Night waking and breastfeeding definitely caused more erratic temps for me, but I could still pinpoint O without much difficulty.  Feel free to post your charts for us to look at if you need help deciphering what's going on... many people use www.fertilityfriend.com- it's free!

[KM84]

Thanks! I just started using FF so I don't have much chart data yet. I wish I'd found FF sooner, I gave up on temping before because it "wasn't working" - my chart didn't look at all like the one in the (cruddy) book I had. FF has so many more chart examples, it's great.

[RenoKirbyButtrs]

I have been having this issue lately too. The "three hours sleep" rule creeps into my head when I wake up early. On top of that, I usually need to go to the bathroom when I wake up, so I am worried about how that affects things.

My logic is this: if you take it early, it could be artificially low, but if you take it late/after stirring and getting up, it could be artificially high. What I have done is take it twice: when I first wake and at my regular time (if I am able to go back to sleep). Then I average the two and enter that into FF. It's not really scientific, but I figure it will prevent any misleading spikes or valleys in my chart. 

However, Jaimee is much more the expert on charting (you always give good advice!) so I would be happy to defer to her on this point! I am new to charting so it's hard to know what effect my method is having on my pattern.

[Jaimee]

Originally Posted by RenoKirbyButtrs 
Then I average the two and enter that into FF. It's not really scientific, but I figure it will prevent any misleading spikes or valleys in my chart. 

However, Jaimee is much more the expert on charting (you always give good advice!) so I would be happy to defer to her on this point! I am new to charting so it's hard to know what effect my method is having on my pattern.

Aw, thanks!    Personally I would not recommend averaging the two temps you're taking.  I would instead enter in the one that is closest to your normal waking time and mark it/make a note if you are concerned about it's accuracy.  As an experiment, though, it would be interesting make alternative charts with the early temps and the averaged temps and see how they all differ (I was a teacher pre-kids, too, so this sort of thing nerdily interests me!) .  Some women are really affected by changes in schedule, ambient room temp, etc. and others aren't.  So once you find out how sensitive you are you can pick the easiest method and just stick with it.  Vaginal temping can also increase consistency.
 

[callieollie]

I used to have this problem too. My schedule varied a lot and sometime I'd be up at 6:30 and other times not until 9:00. I didn't want to have to take it at 6:30 every morning, especially if it was a morning that I had to wake up at 7:00 or something because it was hard for me to fall back to sleep knowing I had to be up so soon. So I ended up switching the time to a time that I never wake up at and is no where near when I have to be up. So my alarm is set for 5:00 every morning. The alarm goes off, I roll over and take it while half asleep, and then when it beeps, I go right back to sleep.  It stores the temp so when I get up for the day, I record it then.  I have found for myself that taking it at the same time every day is more important to me than making sure I definitely got a good 3 hours of sleep prior.   

[KM84]

That seems like a good idea, callieollie. Though I don't think my husband would be a fan of me setting an alarm for 5. I think my plan is, if I fall back asleep within a minute I'll just temp when the alarm goes off, but if I'm lying there awake for a few I'll temp, just in case I don't make it back to sleep.

I found oral temping to be a total pain. I got really irregular readings and I hate holding the thermometer under my tongue. My charts started looking a lot more consistent when I switched to temping vaginally.

[-Resque-]

I also temp(ed) at 5- gave me plenty of time to fall back asleep. My husband never woke up for it.

[SKJ2011]

I just started doing the same thing.  I set my watch alarm for 430.  It's pretty quiet so I don't think DH hears it. I'm so tired at that time that I temp and fall right back to sleep.