Periods starting again after birth

[ScaredyCatMum]

I hope this isn't a stupid question, but when can you expect your first period after your DC has been born? I thought I had one 5 weeks afterwards, but nothing since and DS is now 12.5 weeks old (we've only made love twice since he was born and used contraception, so really hope this does not mean I'm pregnant again - no offence to anyone TTC, but DS has bad reflux and has only recently got medication to get him settled and I want to enjoy being his Mum before thinking about another child). Do I need to go and shell out for test, or is it quite common for periods not to start for several months?
Thanks

are you exclusively breastfeeding? if so , that can affect the periods restarting?

Are you breastfeeding? Because that can have an effect. Mine never restarted until I had got down to two feeds a day.

good question.

dd is nearly 7 months old, mine haven't come back yet. i am breastfeeding.

I bottlefed both of mine from 4 weeks and didn't have a period until they were about 16 weeks old. If you're pretty sure that your contraception didn't fail then I'd just count yourself lucky!

Thanks girls - am breastfeeding (exclusively up to last week when had to introduce odd bottles due to reflux), so sounds like I should just enjoy not having to endure periods again for a while - yeay! Must have just been end of postpartum bleeding at 5 weeks.

Thanks for your quick responses.

I breastfed and had 2 very light periods at 2 and 3 months. Then they came back with a vengeance, heavier than I could have believed even though I breastfed to 8 months - when I found out I was pregnant again! Breastfeeding is certainly NO contraceptive

for it to even begin to be contraceptive you have to maintain feeding at least every 4 hours. by 8 months most babies would go longer than that at night, and in the day if they take well to solids.