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Taking my temp (again)

Hi everyone,

I'm 9 months pp (#4--you'd think I'd have this down by now...) and my cycle has just come back. I've tried a few times in the last 9 months to start taking my temperature but struggled to find the right time of the morning to do so and threw in the towel after a few weeks. Now that the need is here I thought I'd talk to you all and get some advice.

The little guy is currently waking up between 3am and 5am. 90% of the time I nurse him and put him back in his crib. If it's closer to 5 or it's been a rough night and I need some more shut eye I'll put him in bed with us to nurse and fall back asleep. I remember from my CCL homestudy course that your temp can change if you've been up for a while so I'm always afraid it won't be accurate if I take it at, say, 6am when I've been half doozing with baby in bed for an hour or so.

This gets really frustrating because then I feel like my chart is inaccurate. And since every day is different--some days he'll sleep later--I don't know when to make my temperature taking time. I know that before I was pg I set the clock, took my temp, fell back asleep and charted it later. But doing it with a newborn is confusing me. Maybe it's the sleep deprivation. ;-D

I'd really appreciate your advice. (Oh, and I am a member of CCL--not sure if there's a teaching couple in my area--we live in NC now where Catholics are few and far between.)

Blessings to you all,
Lynn

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Permalink Reply by Michelle Ouellette on June 21, 2010 at 11:10am

I look forward to the answer to this as I will be attempting the temp. readings in several months once I'm postpartem. This is baby #6 and I want to combine the two NFP methods as I'm really not ready to have any more babys anytime soon. My cycle has always returned any time after 6 months with my latestest return at 11 months...I was nursing twins at that time. I had just started doing the temp. one along with our regular method when we became pregnant. I just want to be a little more accurate than in the past.

A Very Tired Mommy!
Michelle

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Permalink Reply by Kristin Detloff on June 25, 2010 at 11:16pm

My suggestion to begin with, would be to temp whenever you first wake up from getting 3 - 4 hours in a row. And then temp again at your normal time when you get out of bed. Chart both and see if one or the other seems to "hold" a more specific range. Some women can get by with more then others regarding temp times. I've found for myself that I can nurse my baby at 6am, get back in bed, temp at 7am and it's still well within range and reliable (apparently my body doesn't consider nursing a baby as "exercise" ). One thing also is to have your "set" time between 5 - 7 am if possible as this has been shown to be somewhat more reliable especially for those waking up at night etc. I would also suggest adding the cervix sign (even just when you see your cm ramping up). I always appreciated having the additional sign beyond temp and mucus to confirm that I WAS charting properly and everything was fitting together.

I wish there was a hard and fast answer that fit every woman but it just depends on how finicky your body is going to be about the night waking. I think if you take your temp both when you are up at night with him (noting the time) as well as when you get up for the day (your set time) you will hopefully see a pattern with one or both being reliable for you. And if you are not yet cycling it is especially normal for your temps to look a bit wonky while breastfeeding and spike up and down etc.

I took the liberty of checking out your profile for a location and looked up some CCL instructors in your area. These are all within 60 miles with the Charlotte being the closest. There were none in your immediate location from what I could tell. If you are able to upload your charts or scan them in I would be willing to look at them also and e-mail back and forth with you. (we teach for CCL in ND :-)

Just private message me if you're interested and I'll send you my e-mail. But if you are able to make the drive you might like having someone you can actually meet with in real life!

There is also a website I've been frequenting called http://christianfamilyplanning.net/

It is a group of women all using NFP or FAM to try to avoid, achieve, whatever etc. Although the FAM users are of faiths where they accept the use of barriers I have NEVER had a negative conversation or felt ANY sort of pressure to use barriers etc. My experiences there have been very positive and respectful regarding my Catholic faith. We do have a separate group also just for women using NFP. The nice part is you can upload your chart or link it to your profile and get lots of feedback from some very knowledgeable women which can be very nice in the "what's going on" moments!

Hopefully your cycle will gain some clarity soon! let me know if there is anything I can do to help!!

Kristin

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