Still no AF?

Re: Still no AF?

• SarahRae85 member

  August 2014

  Not personally. Mine comes back within 2-3 months no matter how much I breastfeed.

  
  

  However, I have many friends who breastfeed for long times and their period will stay away until they drop the very last feeding. One friend went over 2 years without anything.

  
  

  There's a bunch of ifs and whats, but there are some possible herbal supplements you can take to maybe encourage AF to return and ovulation. Vitex and red rasberry leaf tea are two of the more popular ones, but you'll want to research them thoroughly. Too much could affect your supply.

  
  

  I saw on the other post that you still nurse at night. Many women have success by simply dropping the night feedings. I believe the logic behind that is that, for most women, the hormone for ovulation is produced in the early morning hours, but if you're breastfeeding those hormones can smother the production of the ovulation hormone.

  
  

  Nothing will start ovulation before your body is ready, but there are ways to maybe nudge it along if you wish.

  
  

  (Not speaking as someone with medical training of any kind, simply from experience/conversations in a group of women who were TTC while breastfeeding)

  DD- 11/17/08, DD- 11/16/09, DS- 3/20/13 

  
  

   

  
  

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• MrsG071809 member

  August 2014

  mine came back when DD was around 10 months, but I only had 2 or 3 cycles and then nothing for like 3 months, and I had one period like 6 weeks ago but again nothing since then.  My cycles were a hot mess before getting PG though, so I'm guessing I'm just going back to the good old days of that.  DD is still nursing at night and in the mornings, more on weekends, and really AF came back sort of out of nowhere...she dropped night feedings very early.  I'm probably a really bad example to go off of though, like I said I had wacky cycles to begin with.  So PP's advice is much better than mine

           

  
  

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• SidraJedi member

  August 2014

  We are still nursing on demand including O/N and AF can back 15.5 months PP for me. However, we are still nursing enough to keep my estrogen and progesterone quite low. The result is that my luteal phase is only about a week and it takes me about three weeks to ovulate ( my first cycle was anovulary ). This is just fine by me (esp. since pms and cramping have been minimal) but we do not want to TTC until DD is 2-2.5 years and even then if it happens a little later we are fine with that. If we were trying TTC right now, my low hormone levels would definitely interfere; a long waiting to o and a luteal phase too short for proper implantation.
  
  I believe so strongly in letting DD self wean that I have adjusted my plan to TTC #2 to DD's BF needs, but if I were somehow in a hurry, I would try eating very clean ( not a lot of treats or empty snacks, just nutrient dense food; veggies, pastured meat, healthy fats ) and stretching nursing sessions out at night (only say 1-2 nursing sessions from 7pm to 7am) or doing away with O/N nursing all together.
  
  I hope you find a solution that you are happy with! GL

  
  

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• youenjoymyself member

  August 2014

  This was a curiosity only post. I'm in the letting DD self-wean camp too. We're in no *real* hurry to get pregnant, but we're not opposed to it either, if that makes sense. I think it's best to let nature space our babies. I was just more curious to see who else hasn't had a period yet. I know plenty of women who nurse through subsequent pregnancies, but their bodies became furtile again much sooner than mine.

  

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• lars1226 member

  August 2014

  Mine never came back either. I got pregnant again in April just after we dropped to 2 sessions a day, maybe a month or so after we stopped overnight nursing. DH and I were kind of trying for a few months before that but since I wasn't getting a period it was hard to know what was going on. Just over the last week or so, DS seems to have weaned. I think my supply is pretty much gone and he is no longer asking for it at bedtime. So I get my body to myself for a few months and then in Jan we'll start all over again!
  

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