How to tell the difference between haidh and istihaadah

[Aishath]

Asalaamu alaykum,

I am having a really big problem determining whether my period has ended and if I am seeing istihaadah blood or what :S The big issue is cz I'm also kaffarah fasting and therefore obviously can't afford to miss any days. My periods are normally very irregular and can sometimes go from having 4 weeks in between to 6 weeks and so on. I normally see quite heavy flow during the first 3-4 days and then it slowly becomes more and more irregular and little until I wait for a night and half a day or so before I make ghusl to ensure complete purity. Due to my irregularity it's hard to tell how long they are meant to last. I sometimes only bleed for 4 days and then from then on it's completely tahir or lately (since Ramdan and even before then) I've been experiencing cycles of 7 days where I blled for three days, the fourth day it's very irregular and small traces of it and then 5th and 6th day it's almost minimal and then I make the ghusl on the 7th day after making sure that night and half a day the next day.

My problem is I recently came across the term istihaadah and now I am very confused. I can't really tell the difference to be honest (I know the signs like the colour etc etc) but for me, this has always been regular that I would experience heavy flows for the first few days and then as it gets lighter, the colour appears lighter. The blood has always been fairly red (although obviously during the first few days, it looks like it is blackish due to there being more of it on the sanitary towels). But as it gets lighter, the redness is more apparent but now I am very confused as to whether I am experiencing istihaadah or what.

I woke up this morning before Fajr and saw that I had not bled at all over the night and therefore assumed I was pure and made ghusl and fasted and then whilst I was praying Maqrib I bled again, only a little bit and normally I would assume this is part of my period but now I am wondering what category it falls into. This is day 5 of my 'period' if I count from the first day.

Can someone please help me because I am so worried that I am missing days of my kaffarah fasting :( I don't normally see a white discharge to indicate the end, but yesterday I put a piece of white clothing there to see if it comes out pure and it did not, and then this morning before Fajr and making the ghusl I DID NOT do this check because I assumed since there was no blood, I was pure. Now when I did that check again, it is not white.

Can someone please help me on this asap since I can't obviously afford to miss any days whilst fasting. :(

[Unregistered]

Types of Istihaadah - islamqa.info