Scarleteen

A lot of people seem to not understand the extent of what's involved with charting your period accurately. We have an excellent article all about FAM and charting right here, but sometimes things need extra explaining, or wading through a lot of text just gets you totally lost and therefore isn't so helpful.

So, if you've ever wondered about how to properly chart your menstrual cycle, exactly what it involves and how it works, or if you'd like something from the article to be clarified, now's your chance! Ask away!

Hi! I have a few questions regarding charting!

1. Is it okay to use a regular digital thermometer? It is usually recommended to use the basal temp thermometers
2. Is it okay if there's a 30-minute difference in taking the temperature? For example, yesterday I got it at 6 am and the next day I got it 6:30 am
3. And are there less "invasive" way of checking the cervical mucus? I'm not really comfortable with putting anything up there even my fingers (therefore I can't check if my cervix is high or low)

Thanks!

If you're going to chart basal temperatures -- which you need to if you want to see the kind of subtle temperature variations that give you any information about fertility -- you need to get yourself a basal thermometer.

Once you have one of those, you just want to take your temp daily as close to the same time as possible. But since no one can have enough information to base fertility information on until they've been gathering it for a few months, and once you do, you'll be looking at overall patterns, not being dead-on with times now and then won't make a big difference. What's most important is that you're just taking it right when you wake up each day.

Ultimately, you're going to have to insert a finger into the vagina to check cervical mucus. What winds up on underpants, for example, is a mix of cervical mucus and general secretions, which is why it matters to check cervical mucus as close to the cervical opening as possible.