Help re: breastfeeding and irregular cycles

[Bovril]

I am 32, DH is 35. We have one son who is 13 months and still breastfeeding 3/4 times per 24 hours.

We have both been on a mix of the IG and LE diet (I didn't want to do completely LE due to breastfeeding) for two months and plan to start TTC a girl this cycle. I am on day 5 of my cycle.

I have been taking cranberry, calcium (citrate) and magnesium supps and of course Folic Acid. DH has been taking Cranberry.

My main worry is that this is my third cycle since having my son and they are very irregular. I had 21 days between AF 1 and 2. Between my 2nd AF and the current one I had 32 days. Previous to my son my cycles were a very regular 27 days. I expect due to breastfeeding it will take a while for my cycles to return to normal.

Ideally we would plan to have one attempt this month with abstinence and cut off, however, I wouldn't even be able to start to guess when ovulation day would be. Would we be better off in our circumstances to try every 4 days through the cycle? I'm not sure what to do!

Thanks very much for any advice in advance!

[nuthinbutpink]

Hi there. There are several items in your sway that may be boy friendly. I highly recommend a personalized plan for you. The breastfeeding alone is a special needs sway!

[atomic sagebrush]

First of all you can't do cranberry when breastfeeding, it's not safe, please wean off right away.

It is normal for it to take a few months to normalize when breastfeeding. What you can do is either do every 4 days OR else do the OPK and go for one attempt at positive OPK. It will probably be pretty tough to encorporate abstain and cutoff in this scenario, but not impossible, you can always try having DH start abstain as soon as AF ends and then DTD when OPK are dark but not posiive - an inexact science though!!

[Bovril]

Many thanks for response!

I think we will try one attempt at +OPK for first two months. It wouldnt hurt to be on the diet for a bit longer anyway if we are unsuccessful.

I am managing to maintain milk supply at 1500 - 2000 calories daily and am skipping breakfast. Although I have always been a breakfast skipper apart from when we conceived our son as it was the week after we returned from a six week vacation where my calorie intake was right up and I was eating breakfast. The perfect boy sway without realising!

I will wean off the cranberry. I had no idea it was bad for BF, thanks for letting me know.

I will certainly get a personalized plan if we have another little boy this time. We are hoping for three children either way. Or if it takes a long time to conceive this time.

Thanks again.

[atomic sagebrush]

Skipping breakfast is just one little thing that may help a bit. No magic bullet to be sure.

Rereading your first post I want to clarify one thing - you are doing a mix of IG and LE Diets because you're breastfeeding?? That makes me think you don't know what LE Diet really is because it's much healthier and better for breastfeeding than IG Diet - I would love to help you with that if you want to give me more details.

[Bovril]

Thanks Atomic, you are incredibly helpful, it is much appreciated!

After having my boy I spent a lot of time on the IG website. I had an idea of the sway I wanted to do and started the IG diet early April with the recommended girl supps (cal, mag, cran). However, once I had started the sway I found your website and after reading it, I got really confused as I agreed with a lot of your research and findings. I modified my diet to make it more on the LE approach, but with a particular focus on calories. I didnt want to go too low on protein for example due to breastfeeding. So am still eating some fish, eggs and occasionally chicken. I have retained some aspects of the IG diet such as avoiding red meat, potatoes, bananas.

I hope Im not messing it up to much, but am trying to balance doing the right thing by my breastfed little one with doing an effective sway as possible. Im losing confidence in my sway a little bit though as the time to TTC gets closer!

[atomic sagebrush]

The amount of protein on LE Diet is normal range for a woman of childbearing age and many eat 50-60 g on LE, be sure you're getting a minimum of 40 and if your baby nurses a ton bump that up to 50-60 range. Fat should be between 40-60 g and if your baby nurses a lot make that the upper levels. Cals for breastfeeding moms I typically have them eat 1800-2000 to start with and some lower over the course of time as their body adjusts, to 1500-1800. Never go lower when nursing (and I really prefer that no one EVER go any lower than 1500-1800!)

PLEASE please be extra careful with those stupid potassium limitations from IG when nursing. Potatoes and bananas are NOT boy foods. On IG and French Diets, they drink tons of dairy which has tons of potassium in it. They are also trying to limit potassium. So in order to limit potassium and include all the dairy, they have to limit other potassium foods. On LE Diet, or even on LE/IG blend, you are not going to be drinking all that dairy and thus it is CRITICALLY important for you to include foods that have potassium in them like potatoes or bananas in order to get up to the required 2500-3500 mg of potassium your body requires (this is the same on all three diets BTW because this is the minimum amount that our bodies need to function.) I strongly recommend that if you are not doing the dairy, you add back in potassium foods and/or drink coconut water every day to be sure that you and your nursing baby are getting enough potassium - this is really important esp. in summer months when it's hot and you're sweating a lot and drinking more!!!!