Breastfeeding and conception

[Fluffsy]

I am currently 50/50 breastfeeding my first child, DD who is 3 months old. Due to my age (41 eek!) ) I need to try to conceive pretty much immediately if I want a second. But my AF has not arrived, I've been told, probably because I am still breastfeeding.

Would anyone know do I need to stop breastfeeding to maximise my conception chances??

Theoretically, whilst you are breastfeeding and amenhorric (no bleeds), your prolactin levels will interfere with oestrogen and progesterone levels so that fertility is reduced. To what level your fertility is effected is case-by-case.

But that doesn’t mean you aren’t ovulating. So pregnancy is possible.

HTH

I wasn't fertile until I completely gave up breastfeeding, at 2 years. Got a period exactly 4 weeks after stopping and pregnant immediately after (whilst on cerezette!).

Some people do become pregnant while breastfeeding and the chances are higher if you're combination feeding as you'll be producing less milk. I exclusively breastfed and still had my periods back at 5 months. I'm still breastfeeding DS2 and am ovulating regularly.
It seems to differ from woman to woman as to when fertility returns. I know more than one person who has had two or even three babies without periods in between as they've still been breastfeeding and caught the first egg.
One theory is that if you up you calorie intake, it can convince your body that you're able to sustain a pregnancy (if that makes sense) so ovulation will occur. I'll try to dig out the link...

kellymom.com/ages/older-infant/fertility/

www.thealphaparent.com/how-to-get-pregnant-whilst-breastfeeding/

These links might be of interest, the second one talks about increasing your calorie intake and the first one has some good stats about the return of fertility.

My periods returned when I went back to work and didn't feed for 10hours or so. I think if you are using breastfeeding as contraception you shouldn't go more than 6 hours between feeds, so possibly you could space them out a bit and that would help.

My cycles never returned until I completely stopped when DS was 19 months. They came back 4 weeks later like a pp.

Of course you could fall pregnant even if ebf, but, in answer to your question, the likelihood is that BFing will be affecting your chances of conception right now

Thank you for the replies and links.

Will buy some OPKs to check whether I am ovulating. I don't want to give up breastfeeding entirely so maybe just increase my calories!

Where are those cakes??