Hi Kate,

If your son is sleeping 6-7 hours a night, then many congratulations!
However, yes, there is a chance that sleeping long periods of time like
that could interrupt your breastfeeding infertility.

Every woman is different. Different women need different levels of
stimulation to keep their prolactin levels high enough to stop their
cycles from coming back. I did not nap with my 2nd daughter, she used a
pacifier to go to sleep, she was night weaned at 14 months, but I had 18
months of lactation amenorrhea. Others might do every single step
right, yet fertility returns at 3 months.

Have you read the book "Breastfeeding & Natural Child Spacing" by Sheila
Kippley? If not, I would urge you to get it. It is the only basic
handbook for lactation amenorrhea and is also very uplifting and
motivating for nursing moms. It will continue to explain more about
what you should be looking for right now.

Personally, I still think you are probably fine without doing heavy
charting until your first period. Yes, you are taking a small risk that
you could ovulate before that first period, but the chance is awfully
small. But I don't know your personal situation for wanting to postpone
pregnancy. CCL states that the chances of becoming pregnant before your
first period while the baby is only on breastmilk is less than 1%.

The thing that makes me feel pretty confident about semi-ignoring weird
mucus while breastfeeding but not following all the ecological
breastfeeding steps is that there are other rules out there (La Leche
League's Lactation Amenorrhea Method), etc that also confirm that chance
of pregnancy before 1st menstruation in the first 6 months of the baby's
life is less than 2%.

Can you use any patch rules like I stated in my previous email to help
allieve the abstinence at this point? At least until you feel more
comfortable with the method? Either that or try to <eeek> wake your
baby up after about 4 hours and see if he will nurse; try that for a
little while and see if that helps clear up your mucus at all.

I'm afraid I'm not as up on things like flax seed, etc, as other are.
Maybe they can help advise. I don't know if it's an okay thing to take
while breastfeeding.

Hope that helped.
Jennifer

-----Original Message-----
From: cinnfp@yahoogroups.com [mailto:cinnfp@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of Liam and Kate Cousino
Sent: Friday, July 01, 2005 4:19 PM
To: cinnfp@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [cinnfp] Return of fertility


We do use a pacifier, since my son gets very cranky if I try to nurse
him when he's not hungry, so he gets the pacifier if he's just tired and
needs comforting. We're weaning him off the pacifier right now, since
we'd rather he/we find other ays of comforting. Other than that, he
nurses on demand, co-sleeps (well, sleeps in a bassinet next to me),
nurses at night, etc. He sleeps 6-7 hours at night - could that be
enough to re-start fertility?

There is a chance of some sort of hormonal imbalance. When I was having
weird cycles before, they became regular when I tood flax seed everyday.
I got out of the habit during preg. though, since I was taking so many
other supplements. Do you think I ought to start taking it again?

Kate



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