Nursing and questions regarding BBT

I'm not sure if this is the right area to post this. If it is please direct me to the proper area.

I'm still nursing my 17 month old son and he's very stubborn and wants to still nurse at night, after his bedtime nursing, maybe 2-3 times. I'm curious about basal body temping to help really pinpoint ovulation but unsure how to go about due to DS4 not being night weaned.

There's no real rush yet as DH is on the fence for trying for #5. He says if he knew our next child is a girl we'd be ttc now. He fears gender disappoinment and not being able to connect if it's another boy.

Thank you for any all help!

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BBT is not terribly reliable to "really" pinpoint ovulating even without nursing. You can try it and some people find it works just fine, but I dont ever think anyone should rely on it. Personally I recommend OPK instead as they are easier to use than temping. I have techniques you can use to do timing with OPK/fertility monitors.

The good news is you don't need to pinpoint ovulation to sway pink. Timing doesn't work anyway and we have other methods to use.

I was under the impression that it was best to do bbt & opks. I have no clue why either, lol. I have opks, pregmate brand,.and would love to hear your techniques with opks. Thank you!

I'm not sure if you need to know this for opk timing but I had to stop my birth control just a few days ago. I only took 2 weeks worth of my packet and stopped. Will the hormone fluctuations throw off the opks?

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BBT only tells you that ovulation has occurred after the fact - it doesn't tell you when you have sex (which is what you need OPKs for!)
But it useful to confirm that ovulation has indeed occurred as occasionally an LH surge/positive OPK doesn't actually lead to ovulation.

It's recommended you take your temp after several hours of uninterrupted sleep, but I found it worked fine even while night feeding. I think because I was cosleeping & breastfeeding so even though I was waking often overnight I wasn't getting out of bed or moving around or doing other things that would alter my temp.

Well, the people who are super into timing methods have everyone do BBT (even tho as deku says, you would only know ovulation after the fact and it doesn't even help for timing). Contrary to what the timing people say, you CANNOT use patterns of temps in past months to tell you what will happen in future months and all the people who swear they ovulated on a certain day because they tracked their temperatures are mistaken. Temp patterns can and do change every month and are just not helpful for predictive purposed.

I am not a fan of people starting timing for a sway, because it tells you nothing except in retrospect and it's a very "control freak" kind of thing that keeps swaying in the forefront of your mind constantly. It gives you something to "swaycess" over (obsess about swaying) which sways blue. Since we have the OPK, and they help us know in advance when to have attempt.

Having taken birth control should not mess up your OPK in the future. Now, you can always have false positive OR false negative OPK at any point in time, and coming off BCP can certainly make for some cycle weirdness, but that doesn't mean that the BCP itself is directly messing up OPK or making them not work. They should still be a helpful method for you, just keep in the back of your mind that false neg and false pos OPK are always possibilities (even without the birth control.)

I’ve been BBT for years. However it’s to avoid a pregnancy, not achieve one. I like it because it confirms that I HAVE indeed ovulated (after 3 days of increased temps) and so then it would be safe for my husband and I to “use” those days.

For achieving a pregnancy, I watch my CM, but I know nursing makes that much more difficult. I would use any day that I saw an increase in, colour change, or texture change in CM.


3 blue 3 pink

Pink due January 28th

Anyone who has done it for a long time I am completely down with them continuing! It's just new people who aren't used to it and get super wound up.

I LOVE NFP for pregnancy prevention (and for achieving it too BTW)it's just as a sway tactic that it falls very short of what I would like it to be.

Thank you so much for chiming in about the CM - it is possible to use that method as a support for the OPK or for temping too.