How soon after finishing BF does AF return?

[sweetandtenderhooligan]

DS (12 months) is bf twice a day and I'm reducing this gradually over the next month or so.

Will AF return during this time? Or only after I've finished bf completely?

I believe there is a lot of variation. Mine started yesterday despite still feeding my nearly 10 month old 6-8 times a day![hsad] I'm not impressed with mother nature.

I had one when dd was 8wks & then next when she was 4mo (she was ebf during all that time) and another recently at 8mo, even though she is still bf 4-5 times in 24 hours. God knows when next will be, totally random ime

Thanks for your replies. I've been feeling a bit achey/crampy and wondered if it was a sign AF was due to visit. We'll have to wait and see... i've enjoyed these last 18 months without her

Wow, you're lucky! My DD is EBF but I started my period again 5 weeks after she was born and it's been every 4 weeks since. She's now 9 months old.

My DD is 14 mo and started sleeping through the night about a month ago, plus generally seeming less interested in full on bf sessions. I've just had my first AF but I did feel a bit crampy on and off a few times previous, and nothing came of it. I think the cramps are just your body gearing up to get going again.

I realise you are talking about periods but please can you tell me what AF stands for????

It stands for aunt flo. I hadn't heard of it till mumsnet. There's a list of acronyms somewhere. I think there's a tab at the top of this page

Period - 6 months.
Stopped breastfeeding - 17 months.

In my case it was three days after I stopped breastfeeding when DD was 6 months. Until then I had none at all.

I had to cut down demand feeding (it was often but not much in quantity terms) at 21 months to get a period, it came back the next month and I got pregnant the next. Am still feeding and 8 months pregnant....

I think frequency of feeds (rather than quantity) makes a big difference. Mine came back at 6m with ds1, at 7.5m with ds2 now but no sign of the Painters yet.