To ask to much you drink when in charge of your child?

[meow1989]

Just wondered as to what everyone's idea of a sensible limit is?

If DH is drinking a couple of beers I'll tend not to, but tonight fancied a glass of prosecco (home measure so about 200ml). Had poured myself another but then put it back as I didn't have dinner (big lunch) and we have a 7 month old DS.

My thinking is if I need to I'll be able drive if I absolutely needed to and I'll wake easily if DS does (still in our room, sleeps through except for dummy wakes, only cosleep in morning after 6.30 bottle).

DH doesn't necessarily think like this and didn't see anything wrong with us both having a second (absolutely amicable brief conversation as to why I put mine back) so I'm just curious as to what everyone else sets as their limit?

I personally don’t drink at all now. Totally sober due to bipolar.
However! As a child I absolutely hated that every single weekend my parents would take me to the pub and get mortalled. I hated going to parties with them I hate our holidays spent sleeping in clubs and seeing them acting like utter twats and me crying to be home. So I made the decision to never ever drink around my kids and I never ever have.

Saying that, I’m genuinely not bothered about what other people do, I think most people are capable of not being irresponsible around their children and I wouldn’t judge or look down upon anyone who had a few Bevs with the kids in bed or playing nicely, my friends do it and my partner does it!

I will say though I wouldn’t like to live like ‘what if a child falls out of bed, smacks his head and needs stitches’ as a basis of me deciding something in my life. God you’d be there all day and not do anything at all if you evaluated risks like that all the time!

God you’d be there all day and not do anything at all if you evaluated risks like that all the time!

Where all day? it’s only the chance of the drinking being reported that is a concern. Drinking isn’t that important that it takes up a lot of my time stressing about not doing it. I very rarely every think about drinking. It’s just not part of my routine and never has been so it isn’t a sacrifice.

Well, I for one have shared a bottle of wine with my husband tonight, as I've done most weekend nights since I stopped breastfeeding. Gotta make the most of it before we're fetching teenaged children from their nights out.

Jesus, this 'someone must stay sober in case we need to go to A&E ' shit is mental.

Mental? really? Does drinking play such a huge part in your life that the idea someone else doesn’t do it sometimes is “mental”? Wow.

While we do drink, it isn’t compulsory! If people feel happier not doing so for any reason, it’s up to them, they’re not telling anyone else what to do

I mean i’ll hazard a guess that there are situations in your life that you choose to be sober for. This is one such situation for some people. Different than how you would choose but mental? Hardly.

Couple of glasses of wine. DH is usually shit faced, so I'd end up driving, I suppose

I had friends who came to stay at a holiday cottage with us and they were convinced it would be a great opportunity to get me drunk so they could see me drunk

^

Yeah i've had people try this. I'd be adamantly sober all night on purpose.

I have a 1 year old and a 4 year old and have had a small beer and 2 glasses of wine tonight. Pretty standard for a Saturday. I don't drive so not a consideration. DS threw up on DH about an hour ago and we were perfectly able to deal with it.

Really both of you should stay sober in case there is an emergency involving an adult. Actually we should all be in thruples or more, as being in a couple is unsafe as something could happen to both of you! Being single should be illegal.

If you think that's ridiculous, it's no more ridiculous than suggesting your kids will be in foster care after you have one glass of wine.

I live in a city, so would not ever worry about drinking. My tolerance was low after being pregnant and breastfeeding back to back for an eternity, but it soon got back to normal! 😂

I personally don’t drink around my children, I only drink a few times of year on nights out/gigs.

It doesn’t bother me that others do, but I just don’t see the point of sitting in the house having a few. I’d rather have a bru and a hob nob at home!

None. But I'm extremely lightweight, so it wouldn't be safe.

We will happily have a few drinks each. Neither of us could drive until DC was 2 anyway and that really doesn't impact on our feelings about it. I suppose we have 4 other drivers in the family within 1 mile of our house if there was an emergency but can't say I let the" what ifs" put me off.

SofiaAmes but isn't drink driving more socially acceptable in America?

Yes, seems like most people drink drive where I live in the US. From just one or 2 to full on blackout driving home (colleague of dh does this regularly) It's ridiculous. So I don't believe that person tbh that it's "frowned upon" for parents to both drink (in moderation) with kids in the house. Its the norm where I am, again in moderation, not falling around messy drunk, that would be frowned upon,but a few glasses of wine, no.

As much as I like, but not to the point of being falling down drunk. Neither of us have ever limited what we drink, even when we’re the only parent at home.

But we aren’t idiots either. We’ve also never had so much to drink that we couldn’t make sensible decisions. 3 glasses of wine over the course of an evening or so, fine for me. 3 glasses of wine, a margarita, and 6 shots, too much! We quite enjoy a drink, but we know our limits and it’s not hard to relax and have a good time without being ridiculous.

Single parent here. It’s all about context isn’t it? I occasionally take toddler DS to a naice pub for lunch and have a couple of glasses of wine. I very often have a glass of wine whilst cooking dinner and one when he’s in bed. In summer I might have a couple of bottles of beer across the evening a few nights a week.

I don’t get drunk any more, and stop drinking as when I can feel myself getting tipsy- sometimes that’s after half a glass of wine, sometimes it’s after three.

He’s never seen me drunk and hopefully never will- but the idea of him never seeing me drink as some sort of gold standard is bobbins- the same as the “no sugar, not even fruit sugar” nonsense... what the fuck do you think will happen when they get out into the real world, and there’s all this “forbidden fruit”? (literally fruit for some)? they’re going to go absolutely mental because they weren’t taught moderation at home.

Single parent here and I always stick at one drink when I'm in charge of DS. I can't drive so that makes no difference.

I hardly ever drink at home. Alcohol is expensive and there are other things I'd rather buy.

Dp and I take turns. And I didn’t drink at all when I knew dc might end up in with us ( so definitely not at 7 months) I read a really scary article about peaks in any nighttime deaths linked to nye drinking once and it stayed with me

Single parent, £40 each way taxi from A&E. When dc were small I only had a drink when they were away and not that often. I lost the taste for it after not drinking while pg/breast feeding. Now I might occasionally have a couple with friends but no more than that and nothing if driving. It's heading towards more non drinking again as I am spending more time in the evenings as taxi driver for dc.

I think as a single parent you're much more conscious of being negatively judged for all sorts of things. Plus modelling sensible behaviours is all down to you.

I don't drink.

Because if anything happens to DS and I need to drive or take him hospital or anywhere else, at least I know I'm not under the influence of alcohol.

Not lot, prefer to be fit to drive - but my kids are now adults, once they became teenagers we did drink at the same time a bit, I'm just not a big drinker

Don't drink all week and we share a bottle of wine on a Saturday or I will have a few gins and dh will have a few beers

Pregnant atm but before that on the nights I drank (generally just weekends or if I had a night out/ friends over) enough that I was still perfectly capable of ordering an Uber: packing a hospital bag/ making sense. I have a relatively high tolerance though so I didn’t ‘count’ drinks exactly, just slowed down or stopped if I thought I was getting anywhere near drunk drunk. My DS slept through very reliably early though so I could be 99.999% sure he wouldn’t need me in the night. Before that when I was doing a night feeds I was more careful (mix fed so formula on those nights too)

I can’t drive (though DH can and we have a car) and live very central London where you can always get a taxi extremely fast (and at the nearest two hospitals there is almost no parking) so I don’t worry about a hospital trip.

Tbh I think most hospital trips with a small child would be because they have an accident (burns, swallowing something, falls etc) which isn’t really going to happen at 2am once safely in bed - if my child had something like a temperature/ not quite right when they went to bed and I was concerned/ monitoring them for being ill then I don’t drink at all.