Hiding being pregnant over Christmas

[emmam2016]

Hi everyone,

I'm sure this must have come up before but I'm going to be 8-9 weeks over Christmas with my second pregnancy and planning to announce to both sets of parents Christmas Eve, but no one else until I've had my dating scan which will be around mid Jan. Any hints or tips for hiding my little secret over Christmas? I'm not a huge drinker but I would definitely have a drink or two with Christmas dinner usually so it would be noticed and I prefer not to drink when pregnant. The biggest challenge is that we are hosting a NYE party at our house so I can't even be designated driver for that one!

When I wanted to hide it during a big function, I had one glass of wine, topped up with lemonade and sipped it slowly. I kept topping up my water glass.

You may not wish to take that option. You could order a non-alcoholic wine/beer and not tell anyone?

When I was pregnant at weddings etc in the first trimester I would make sure I had a glass of wine to hand which I would tactically swap with DP or tip away/leave somewhere. I wouldn’t say you’re on antibiotics or not drinking as people will guess/ask. I found it was much easy to hide after everyone else had had a few drinks!

Depends.

You can drink whilst pregnant. So unless you always get bladdered, I can’t see that anyone would notice. Be the designated driver if it helps.

Say you're drinking vodka and coke, just have coke.

If the party is at yours, then do your own drinks, nobody will notice after a few drinks anyway.

Have a bucks fizz with dinner, it'll be fine

Becks do a great non alcoholic beer-poured in a glass no one would know.
Or offer to be a great host on taxi duty!!

Congratulations! Watered down apple juice can pass as wine or as pp said have a fizzy drink and claim it has vodka in it/ drink directly from bottle or can with a replacement drink inside

I never actually notice what people are drinking at christmas tbh.

Appletizer in a wine glass looks like wine.

Non alcoholic larger? Gin n tonic (just tonic water) x

At my hen party, my friend didn't want to tell everyone she was pregnant yet so she was drinking non alcoholic cider. The bottles looked the same to anyone who glanced over and saw her pouring it.

Ask the bar man to make you a tonic water that looks like a g&t. Lime and lemonade minus the vodka. Just make sure to ask for the smaller glass and you are winning

The NYE party is fine. Just make sure you are holding a full glass of something vaguely sparkly and celebratory when the first guests arrive. Elderflower or shloer should do the trick. From that point onwards, I doubt anyone will pay the slightest attention to what the host is pouring themselves.

Christmas dinner possibly more noticeable. I'd just go for the soft drink option and say that's what you fancy. And don't get flustered if people challenge you.

Mind you, I have to admit that when I was in exactly the same position, it turned out that three of us round the table were all trying to hide our pregnancies from each other and it got a bit farcical when we kept making excuses. At the end of the day, as long as your parents are the first to know, you may have to accept that some others will guess. Hopefully they'll be polite enough to keep shtum.

Who’s going to be at Christmas dinner who doesn’t know? Surely it will be easier to tell them.
For NYE just hold a wine glass with alcoholic coloured liquid.
Go round topping up everyone else’s glass and for midnight, if you’re having fizz, just open something sparkling no & non alcoholic

You can get alcohol-free wine which looks identical to normal wine unless you're looking at the label closely. Can you keep a bottle or two of that, or an alcohol-free fizzy wine (recommend Bees Knees), and top up from that?

Just hold a glass of wine or have one at the table. People don’t look to see if you are actually sipping it.

At dinner go out to kitchen at one point and take your wine to tip a bit out.

Take the tiniest sip at some point and remark how nice it is loudly.

At nye- say you are feeling unwell so don’t want to drink much. Then just carry drink around and get a friend or your oh to drink some at some point.

Or come up with an excuse why you have to drive.

Ps if all else fails just say - we are trying to get pregnant, we may be pregnant but it’s early days and don’t want to risk anything by drinking - can’t go wrong with the truth!!!!!

Just drink soft drinks. If challenged, say you're getting over a cold/sore throat. Alcohol is always the last thing I fancy if I'm not feeling well!

Not sure if this would work for you, but I pretended to be very hungover and that worked a treat! Explained away feeling queasy and not wanting to drink.
Congratulations and good luck x

I got through hosting NYE pregnant by just holding a drink all the time. Honestly, if you don't make a big deal of it nobody will notice.

Yeah i agree - as soon as you tell people you aren’t drinking - for whatever reason - they will think you are pregnant. Hence your efforts should be focused on just looking like you are drinking as normal.
I got through my own hen do without people guessing!!! I had a lot of help from friends tho!

Congratulations!!

With dc1, we found out I was pregnant the week before Christmas.

For one social event, I said I was on antibiotics for a tooth infection. Added bonus was that I could blame the antibiotics for all my other pregnancy symptoms as I’m allergic to a lot of antibiotics and the ones I can take still have side effects.

At other social events, I asked for beer, (said I’d recently had an awful hangover from my usual drink choice) which DH would sip/drink for me.

He got so drunk that year! (And again for the next 3 years as I was either pregnant or BF)

You could also ask for a spirit and mixer, then get DH to swap for just the mixer.