NFP and the working mother

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Hi everyone, so I’m new to this and am not sure where to begin. I guess I came here to see what other working mothers have to say about NFP and working. Is it difficult keeping track of charting while having long days at work? I almost feel as if the whole charting thing of NFP is more for moms who stay at home. I know of a couple, the wife stays home, and the husband works. They work together closely with the whole charting thing. The wife checks her signs and sends the results to her husband who is at work and he puts the results in an app on his smart phone. Now what about the working mother who works 9 or 10 hours a day, 5 days a week to make ends meet? How is she supposed to find time to chart? Do you bring your chart to work? Or do you wait till the end of the day and try to remember your signs you had during the day and chart them later? I just want to know how working mothers do this. Thanks
 
I had a lot of long days and weird hours in grad school as a newlywed (late nights, early mornings), but we did OK with NFP.

Different people will have different results.

A SAHM of small children is not going to have more leisure than a working mom for charting.
 
Well a SAHM might still have more time and be able to do it better in the comfort of her own home where she has all her charts and pens and things handy.

Im wondering about mothers who work very long hours and almost have no time for this sort of thing or just forget to do it from being so tired at the end of the day.
 
Well it’s four minutes for the temperature, another for writing down and checking secondary fertility signs. The thermometer lays beside the bed. It’s not more than that, sleeping enough is the most important. And if I don’t work till late in the night, I have no problems. May it be possible that you calculate far more time for nfp than needed?
 
My worst problem (and here the working or not working is irrelevant) is that I might wake up and sleepily take a drink of water, wrecking my temperature results for the morning.

Otherwise, it takes maybe 2 minutes time total for the day.

But I am not (and don’t need to be) very finicky about charting.
 
I don’t chart temp signs due to my restless sleeping habits which mess with my readings. I do the mucus only method. This entails being aware of my sensations all day and checking cervical fluid several times throughout the day during bathroom visits. Most of the time I forget to check because I’m so busy and stressed. As for constantly thinking about the sensations I feel down below, I almost never remember. It’s been difficult
 
But I am not (and don’t need to be) very finicky about charting.
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Why is that? Do I too not have to worry about being so precise with temp readings? Maybe I’m being too particular
 
HorsesForever said:
I know of a couple, the wife stays home, and the husband works. They work together closely with the whole charting thing. The wife checks her signs and sends the results to her husband who is at work and he puts the results in an app on his smart phone
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This arrangement seems really weird to me. I know a lot of people do it, but honestly recording signs takes a couple of seconds. My husband has no interest in being involved and I don’t care.

I work part time and I am home with my son full time. I use an app, so recording NFP data takes less than one minute per day. Not really time consuming.

If you’re new to NFP, it can take some time to learn. But after you’ve been doing it awhile it’s really just like anything else built into your routine- brushing teeth, taking out the trash, etc. If you use an app it’s even easier.
 
I use an app on my phone. I put my temperature in right when I wake up and I’ll put my mucus observations in after going to the bathroom. It tells me when I ovulated and I double-check that against my own knowledge. Most of the time and effort I spend is just me stressing out about TTC.
 
HorsesForever said:
Is it difficult keeping track of charting while having long days at work?
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I’m not sure why you think it would be.
HorsesForever said:
I almost feel as if the whole charting thing of NFP is more for moms who stay at home.
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Again, not sure why.
HorsesForever said:
I know of a couple, the wife stays home, and the husband works. They work together closely with the whole charting thing. The wife checks her signs and sends the results to her husband who is at work and he puts the results in an app on his smart phone.
Click to expand...
That seems overly complicated.

Depending on what method you use, just keep a pad of paper by the bed to temp for sympto thermal. For Creighton, which I use, I just observe mucus and then note it at the end of the day.
HorsesForever said:
Now what about the working mother who works 9 or 10 hours a day, 5 days a week to make ends meet? How is she supposed to find time to chart?
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I don’t get it. Why is this an issue? Just write down your observation at the end of the day. You don’t need a fancy app. You don’t need a spreadsheet. But whatever you choose to do, it’s not difficult. It takes like 5 seconds.
 
My temperature collection was always a mess both working and stay at home. I’ve had better luck with mucus observation on the chart and how it aligns with intensity of desire. A lot of my friends have switched to Marquette. I’m considering it.
 
Maybe it is not as complicated as I’m making it. A friend of mine says once you really get intuned with your body, NFP is kind of a piece of cake. You all make it sound like no big deal. Maybe I need to just chill and it will be fine.
 
I used to use Ovuview (which I loved- it’s great) but then I got an iPhone and that app wasn’t available, so I switched to Fertility Friend. Either one is good.

It really doesn’t take any time at all. If you get an app, you can just set a timer for that night if you think you’ll forget to record.
 
Clementine14 said:
I used to use Ovuview (which I loved- it’s great) but then I got an iPhone and that app wasn’t available, so I switched to Fertility Friend. Either one is good.

It really doesn’t take any time at all. If you get an app, you can just set a timer for that night if you think you’ll forget to record.
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Ok, I look into that. I did find an app called OviaFertility. It got numerous good ratings. I wonder if this is similar to fertility friend
 
How does that change how much time it takes to put information in an app? I use Fertility Friend.
 
I use Creighton model and so temperatures aren’t an issue for me. To be completely honest, I don’t really chart anymore. I did when we were first married and was learning the model, but at this point, I can usually keep track mentally.
 
HorsesForever said:
Why is that? Do I too not have to worry about being so precise with temp readings? Maybe I’m being too particular
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Well, I’ve been doing this for 20 years, so this is more informational (what is possible after some experience) rather than do-it-like-this.

I do temperature readings from about Day 6 to whenever we deem Phase 3 to be underway. I do cervical fluid readings from about Day 6 to whenever we think Phase 3 has started. That means that the labor-intensive part of the cycle is about two weeks, but we’re talking a total of 2 minutes a day, no more. It does get very intuitive with experience.

I’m not OCD about checking cervical fluid when I check. We do a bedtime check and if I see anything during the day, I might check stretch, but I’m not doing it all day long.
 
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