There's no need to wean your baby: You can breastfeed and prepare for your next pregnancy at the same time. Many breastfeeding mothers find that once they go back to work or the coveted full-night's sleep becomes a reality, ovulation starts up and they begin to menstruate again.
The return of fertility
Breastfeeding and the hormones that go along with milk production can suppress ovulation from returning. If you're not breastfeeding, ovulation usually doesn't return until at least six weeks postpartum for most women.
While exclusive breastfeeding can temporarily delay your fertility postpartum, making it more difficult to conceive while nursing, it's not impossible. With that in mind, the short answer is yes, you can get pregnant while breastfeeding.
A breastfeeding mother's fertility is decreased because higher amounts of prolactin inhibit GnRH through a direct relationship. The less prolactin there is secreted, the less inhibition occurs. Inhibition and fertility have an inverse relationship. The less inhibition that occurs, the higher the fertility rate will be.
Pay attention to your discharge. If suddenly the cervical mucus goes from sticky and thick to being rather light and clear to the point of making you feel wet, you are ovulating, and pregnancy after ovulation is more than possible.
Previous twinning studies
Steinman found that women who become pregnant while breastfeeding are nine times more likely to conceive twins than women who are not breastfeeding at the time of conception.
If your menstrual cycle lasts 28 days and your period arrives like clockwork, it's likely that you'll ovulate on day 14. That's halfway through your cycle. Your fertile window begins on day 10. You're more likely to get pregnant if you have sex at least every other day between days 10 and 14 of a 28-day cycle.
What's the best interval between pregnancies? To reduce the risk of pregnancy complications and other health problems, research suggests waiting 18 to 24 months but less than five years after a live birth before attempting your next pregnancy.
If you still aren't having regular periods (the prime sign that you're ovulating), they should return as baby gradually eats more solids and takes less milk from your breasts. And even if you continue to breastfeed frequently, your fertility will return eventually.
A woman's fertility declines with age, sometimes it can be harder to get pregnant with a second child than it was with the first. When a woman has trouble getting pregnant on her own after a previously successful natural conception and birth, fertility doctors refer to this as secondary infertility.
Some couples find it easier to get pregnant the second time around (maybe because they are already familiar with their unique ovulation patterns), but for many couples, it takes longer to get pregnant the second time. In fact, secondary infertility is more common than primary infertility.
The highest pregnancy rates occur in couples who have sex every day or every other day. Have sex near the time of ovulation. If having sex every day isn't possible — or enjoyable — have sex every 2 to 3 days a week starting soon after the end of your period.
You're most fertile at the time of ovulation (when an egg is released from your ovaries), which usually occurs 12 to 14 days before your next period starts. This is the time of the month when you're most likely to get pregnant.
Fertility treatment
Some fertility drugs work by stimulating a woman's ovaries, which can sometimes cause them to release more than one egg. If sperm fertilizes both of these eggs, this can result in twins. In vitro fertilization (IVF) can also increase the chance of conceiving twins.
This is why fraternal twins run in families. However, only women ovulate. So, the mother's genes control this and the fathers don't. This is why having a background of twins in the family matters only if it is on the mother's side.
Breast milk supply
If you are breastfeeding when you become pregnant, your milk supply will drop. This is because hormones during pregnancy cause a decrease in milk production. Your milk supply will not dry up completely. But you may notice it drop more in the fourth and fifth month of pregnancy.
Many mothers wonder whether breastfeeding will affect the reliability of pregnancy tests. It does not — pregnancy tests measure the amount of the hormone hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) in blood or urine, and hCG levels are not affected by breastfeeding.
your cervical mucus – you may notice wetter, clearer and more slippery mucus around the time of ovulation. your body temperature – there's a small rise in body temperature after ovulation takes place, which you may be able to detect with a thermometer.
Medium gap (two to four years)
With this gap, you'll have the lowest risk of having preterm birth and a low birth weight baby (Zhu, 2005).