Any way to induce period whilst breastfeeding?

[PSL1990]

My baby is 8 months old. I exclusively breastfed up to 6.5 months and for the last 1.5 months I've been weaning on to formula. Now, I'm in the second week of only breastfeeding through the night, usually around 1am, 4am and 7am. I've not done any breastfeeding between 7am and 7pm for the last two weeks.

I want my period to return so I can TTC later this year but there is no sign so far.

Has anyone got any tips for me? Has anyone had a GP prescription. To induce periods back after breastfeeding?

I would love to keep breastfeeding through the night whilst i TTC but know this may not be possible.

The point is that if breastfeeding is suppressing your ovulation, then you won't get a period and you are less likely to get pregnant. Taking a week of progesterone to induce a period doesn't mean that you're ovulating.

You don't need to wait for your period to return. I fell pregnant with DD whilst breastfeeding my eldest (I hadn't had a period since falling pregnant with my eldest). The midwife said this is surprisingly common! Good luck!

Look up Angus castus. Nature's clomid apparently

I think night feeding suppresses ovulation. Worth double checking though, as this advice may have been revised.

@dietcokemegafan @BigMamaFratelli

Just to add another complication, when I say TTC I actually mean frozen embryo transfer! We had IVF with the NHS in 2017 and we want to transfer an embryo this year. When I spoke to the IVF department about not having my period back they told me my GP would be Babel to prescribe something to induce it. When I asked my GP if this would work in terms of creating the right environment for the embryo transfer he didn't know (he's understandably not an IVF specialist!). So I am trying to piece it together myself. If I stop the night feeds and get a prescription from the doctor, like you said @dietcokemegafan - this wouldn't necessarily mean I'm ovulating? But would that just be the first cycle after progesterone and then normal cycles would commence?

I'm a GP and I would write a very rude letter to any ivf dept who suggested that. Why on earth didn't they do a script if it's so simple?!

@dietcokemegafan I'm not sure, I was so confused when I spoke to them! Back in 2017, I had a failed transfer followed by a really long cycle and the IVF department prescribed me norethisterone to induce a period. I took that, transferred an embryo 20 days later and the baby was born 8 months ago so it seemed the norethisterone did its job then. This time when I spoke to them about not having my cycle back yet but wanting to do another transfer the response was basically sort out your cycle with a GP and tell us when you're ready to transfer.

Night weaning will help particularly if done abruptly for some reason.
There is also evidence that upping your calories so that your body realises you have enough to sustain a pregnancy can bring your fertility back.
Good luck

My period came back when I stopped breastfeeding through the night. So then I was only feeding twice, first & last thing

my periods also came back 4 weeks to the day when I stopped feeding through the night so ds was 8 months when they returned. I was still feeding very regularly during the day then and have had a pretty regular ish cycle since then and still feeding a couple of times a day now with ds at 17 months now.
so for me I can only guess that bight feeding was a significant factor (and there were lots of night feeds)
good luck

@mimimonster @OneAndDoneForNow @sleepycat13

I give my baby formula in the day so my body goes for 12 hours without breast feed I.e. from 7am to 7pm. Do you think this would have the same effect as stopping breastfeeding through the night?

@PSL1990
I can't see why it would be any different to going 12hrs through the night

www.breastfeeding.ie/Ask-our-expert/Questions/Do-I-have-to-stop-breastfeeding-to-get-pregnant.html

take a look at the above link. if I have understood correctly hormone levels associated with bf that may play a role in ovulation are different at night so dropping feeds at night may actually be significant.... but it also says gaps of more than 6 hours between feeds should help with ovulation returning too which you are doing during the day.