to think I won't survive the next 9 months on one cuppa a day!!! :O

[Archemedes]

I've found out that apparently now during pregancy you arent supposed to have any caffiene but if you do one cup a day! :O

I mean I overcame smoking in my first pregnancy and havent smoked since but tea?? its a lifeline I have a v. hyperactive toddler who wakes up at 7 doesnt nap and goes to bed at 7.30/8pm.

I can't survive on one cuppa a day ....just had one and i'm eyeing up the kettle again blindfold me chop hands of

AIBU to think most people will struggle with this.

Cheaper decaff coffee is decaffeinated using some fairly ghastly chemicals so I wouldn't go near it; Abra1d I think your GP is right.

Decaff tea I'm not sure about, chemicalwise. But I drink gallons of it. Once you have weaned yourself off caffeine (don't go cold turkey!) then it's pretty good. Decaff Earl grey is quite nice.

The nice thing about quitting caffeine is that it's ten times easier to wake up in a morning, and easier to go to sleep too. After a week or two drinking caff, your body needs it to get to the state it would otherwise have been in, without any caffeine. So you drink more to get the buzz, you get more tolerant, and need more... I'd got to 9 mugs of coffee a day, cafetiere-strength and quitting that was horrible. I'm just glad I did it some years before I got pregnant... If you don't drink it, then you aren't needing it to wake, so it's much easier. I am now much more of a morning person!

crosspost! :)

No tea? Since when?! [Waddles off with 8.5 month pregnant tum to check...]

[Returns huffing and puffing]

OK, you can safely have 200mg of caffeine a day, there's 75mg in a cup of tea and 50mg in a cup of green tea. And a mere 40mg in a can of Coke - woo-hoo! I'm safe!

Only three weeks until I can eat pate and brie again... :)

never heard of it either. our mothers and grandmothers did ok!

I'm pregnant and I can't drink tea at all anymore because it makes me horrendously sick. I can still drink coffee but it's not the same, I miss my cuppa's

I went off coffee when I was pregnant the first time and never went back on it.

I did try to drink decaff tea but never worried too much about it with any of the four.

Try some Red Tea

I think you can order a free redbush tea sample here, I'm enjoying and find it more palatable than green tea.

I used to drink tons of coffee but when I was pregnant I went off it straight away and it was quite easy to give it up. I didn't notice the side effects of caffeine widrawal but maybe I assumed they were pregnancy-related such as constipation and tiredness.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I gave up coffee completely cold turkey and it wasn't nice - nausea, headaches, aching legs, insomnia but after about 10 days it was done.

I would try decaff to give yourself the feeling of having a cup now and again throughout the day

You just wait till the baby arrives pretty much every hot drink will be off limits.

Haha yes Moobee - can't remember having a hot cup of tea until ds was about 3 months old!!!

I can't find the original info or I'd have linked to it, but I recently found a report in an academic journal that covered caffeine in tea, brewed in a pot from loose leaf tea.

As I recall, two thirds of the caffeine comes out in the first brew. The second brew using the same leaves has 25%. The third brew has 8%. So you get three cups of tea for the caffeine content of one and a half cups. You have to brew the second and third cups for longer, but you still get a decent cup of tea out of the re-used leaves!

Try decaff tea?

Yorkshire De-caff tea is lovely, there is hope

Was in the trial that showed caffine is linked to (i think) lower birth weight. Sorry about that everyone.

I had to keep a dairy of every little thing I consumed with caffine in. Including chocolate and stuff. Amazing how it added up over the weeks.

I haven't stopped to be honest. I have drastically reduced talking 14 cups of coffee to 2 milder cups. Ime decaf coffee is ok but decaf tea is bloody awful. Still drink tea but again limited amounts to 2 cups a day. I mean to drink less in all honesty but seem to do so on auto pilot !!!

Health professionals are always changing their minds about foodstuffs. When I was having DS1 they strongly recommended I eat as much liver and spinach as possible. By the time DS4 came along, of course, you would definitely poison your baby if you touched a morsel of either. (I was also frowned upon for laying DS1 on his back, as he would definitely definitely choke to death, and with DS4 he would definitely definitely choke to death if he was NOT on his back.)

I went off coffee from 12 weeks onwards with all of them, but only went off tea with the last one. I drank nothing but water and Lucozade for about 6 months. Well the water was probably a good thing.

Guess what though, they all survived. That is, my first pregnancy miscarried, but liver was definitely not involved. I did have a couple of glasses of wine before I knew... but then again, it may have been just one of those things. I poured half a bottle down my throat when I realised I was expecting no 3. Didn't work, he's still here!

I remember this being news during my first pregnancy sixteen years ago. At that time it was reported that coffee drinking increased the risk of premature birth or miscarriage. My Mum and my bf come from countries where it is common for people to drink at least two or three strong cups of coffee a day - at the time I remember them saying that if the reports were true there would be no one alive today in those countries! Seriously I think 5 or 6 cups a day might affect the cardiovascular system but one or two not. Everything in moderation.

I didn't change my coffee drinking habits - I drink 8-10 strong mugs of filter coffee a day . These 'guidelines' change all the time, my MIL (a midwife in the 1960s ) smoked and drank gin throughout her pregnancy and had two healthy children.

I think the most important thing you can do is relax .

Gah. I gave up Stilton and rare steaks so I am a bit gutted they are ok now (and I only gave birth 4 months ago so these things move fast)

I didnt give up caffine. I drank maybe 6 / 7 coffees a day, plus 4 / 5 cans of diet cola. Was never at any point given any information about it being a risk.

Was told to drop it completely whilst bf, which I have done but my god the first 3 days ............. I couldn't actually see the headache was so bad.

HV told me it takes 96 hours for caffine a child gets from breastmilk to leave its system. No idea if thats true or not

Oh - and if caffine does lower birth weight...........,DS was 9lb 1 so if that's true me and my fanjo are glad I drank so much :) I was almost sorry I had stopped smoking

*disclaimer, I am of course not sorry I stopped smoking or saying a low birth weight is in anyway a good thing. Just that delivering a baby over nine pounds stings a bit

I was an addict, but I used a dinky cup and saucer that holds about half a cup of tea all the way through pregnancy. I guess it's all about the sit down/hot liquid for me rather than the caffeine!

Catgirl - have been breastfeeding for 18months and have about 3 cups a day. Toddler's iron is fine, sleep is fine, cognitive development excellent. What were you told was the reason for stopping?

I am surprised any of us was ever born healthy in that case. I ,like most pregnant women I have known, went right off coffee, but tea is a lifeline.On chemo I couldnt drink my usual brew but found that replacing the milk with lemon made it very palatable. No tea....[wanders off clucking mournfully].

I couldn't have got through two pregnancies without regular infusions of tea. I've heard about coffee being harmful but when did tea go on the banned list?

Decaff tea is shite by the way.