TTC while EBF

[Destinyk]

Hi there! My daughter is nearly 5 months old and my DH and I are now starting TTC #2 . Is there any advice you'd like to share on how you boosted fertility to do so? Anyone is welcome to join my journey, would love to share with ladies in the same boat as well! I'm not looking to stop EBF at all.



Edit:

I've been working a part time job for a little over a month now so I have been missing one to three feeds depending on my hours, during this time my daughter is drinking breast milk that I have frozen for her. AF returned June 6 and was normal in flow but on July 15 I had a bleed that resembled a very light AF so my cycle was 39 days if I counted that as AF Today is CD 9 and it seems my cycle is totally whacked based on my last so I've no clue when I will O. I don't plan on temping or anything as TTC 1 was stressful because of that and I ended up pregnant as soon as I stopped. I'd like to drink Fertilitea because I got pregnant the first cycle using but because I'm BF it's not an option. I called the company that makes it to ask and they said they do no recommend drinking it while BF so that's a bummer. Anyone drank Fertilitea while BF and baby was fine?

 

[mrsclt]

Unless you start weaning of some sort, eg dropping night feeds or a feed or two in the day, there's nothing you can do to increase your fertility. It'll happen either with weaning, or in time on its own.

 

[Destinyk]

Mrsclt thank you for the advice I actually have to add some more info to the original post that I could not do at the time of making this thread, I will go ahead and do that now

 

[MrsHudson]

But are you pumping in place of those feeds? If bf is really important to you, I don't think you should be dropping feeds at this point. Even if you have a huge stash to get you through while working, if you're not pumping your supply will decrease and eventually stop.

If you don't care about that, I still urge you to wait. It takes at least a year to fully recover from giving birth. Otherwise you can risk complications as well as depleting yourself of essential nutrients.

Your af will be whacky for awhile. Light bleeding doesn't necessarily mean you O. Mine didn't return until my LO was 9 months and started eating solids and it's actually been regular at 32 days.

 

[Destinyk]

Mrshudson I know, I do pump in place of those feeds and I am able to replace the milk she had and then some. I understand there may be complications, I do plan on consulting my doctor, however I plan to start a nursing program next August so the best timing for us to TTC #2 would be now because we didn't want such a large gap in ages. If I wait until I'm done with the nursing program my DD will be 3 1/2 already and then add however long it may take to conceive plus 9 months before they're born, she could easily be 5 by then.

 

[mrsclt]

My period returned at 8 weeks post partum, seemed like a normal period, then nothing until 4 months pp. I also had very light periods from then on, until around 1 year pp. The light periods I wasn't ovulating, and had short frequent cycles. This year my cycle has returned to normal with ovulation happening and periods got heavier, more like pre pregnancy ones. If your having light periods and thats not what you would normally have, you may not be ovulating yet. (And temping may not be reliable anyway due to the breastfeeding and the night waking, I didn't bother with it till after a year because they were just too erratic to see what was happening.) Just keep that in mind, I wish I had known I wasn't ovulating during those months, 6 months of ttc and not knowing i had no chance those cycles. But full fertility returned around the 1 year mark for me, so hopefully it returns quickly for you

 

[MrsHudson]

I understand. I plan to become a midwife sooner than later so I would rather have another baby now myself! Good luck.

 

[Wnt2beAMom]

I'll join you! However, my periods haven't returned and my son is just about 18 months! He nurses quite a lot still and we nurse on demand. We aren't rushed to get pregnant but don't want to prevent either.

 

[Destinyk]

Mrsclt wow thanks for the info, I sure hope I start to O soon if I'm not already

Mrshudson how exciting I wish you luck and thank you!

Wnt2beamom wow I wouldn't have complained if I had a few extra AF free months though i must admit the two I've had so far have been pleasant. I found not worrying about getting pregnant got me pregnant faster the first time around rather than when I was temping and stressing out over everything so I think your NTNP plan sounds great! I think I may just go with that attempt