No period after 2 years

[Redmom]

My son is 2 years old and continues to breastfeed.  My periods have not returned, and I'm suprised because I thought they would have returned by now.

I'm nearly 40 and my husband and I would like to try for another baby.  So I'm anxious not ovulating, since my fertility window is already closing.

My son nurses during the day about 5 times, then at 8pm before bed.  He was waking around 1am to nurse but recently I have been encouraging him to go back to sleep without nursing, so sometimes he won't nurse again until 4.30am/5am.  I had read somewhere that if a baby goes for 6 hours without nursing at night, periods can return.

Does anyone have any thoughts or advice?

Thanks!

[DanielleNZ]

I breastfed my eldest until he was almost 4, my period returned a few months after he turned two and had basically night weaned himself. So he wasn't feeding for at least 7-8hrs in a row. On top of that I had the issue of not weighing enough to get a period. So weight could possibly be an issue for you to?

I would give it another month or so trialing soothing your son back to sleep in the night and see what happens from there.

[phathui5]

Have you read Taking Charge if Your Fertility? That's a good one to start with.

I usually get about a year off from my period while I'm nursing a baby, but it has always returned by 13 months even when I'm still breastfeeding.

[Asiago]

My period returned at 32 months once my son began sleeping 4+ hour blocks at night. It took about a month.

FWIW, most women in the world use breastfeeding to control fertility and in traditional cultures, children suckle frequently which suppresses mothers fertility for years. They try to space births appoximately four years apart (weaning the child several months into the pregnancy).

[freerangemama11]

My son is almost 2 (23 months) and I still haven't gotten my period, and it's been almost three years.  He doesn't nurse too often during the day because I work outside the home about 3 days per week, but he still does a lot of night nursing, and needs to suckle in order to fall asleep.  He nurses to sleep (around 8pm), and then nurses again around midnight, then again around 5am.  I stopped pumping at about 18 months, but still make a decent amount of milk.  I think that the night nursing is almost more important in terms of stopping the cycles than during the daytime.  I read that prolactin (one of the nursing hormones) is mostly secreted at night, so the night nursings must be doing it.  I'm definitely in the same boat as you though Redmom, because I'm not getting any younger and would love to have a second child soon.  One thing I have noticed is that I'm starting to get a bit of a thick, sticky discharge at certain times of the month.  This reminds me of the type of fertile cervical mucus I'd have when I was ovulating, so I'm wondering if I'm ovulating again, but just not menstruating.  Also, I don't have as much vaginal dryness as when my son was nursing more frequently.  Are you having anything like this?