Booze F' Baby

[Sushipaws]

Ok, so this might be a debatable subject but I'd like some honest answers from real Mums rather than interfeering biddy's.

My dd is 7months old. I had my first night out drinking on Saturday, I had 1 glass of wine and 3 Pimms & Lemonade, started at 9pm and finished at midnight. I was actually quite merry on this small amount, cheap night for me.

My dd woke at 5am for her usual morning breastfeed, I tried to give her a bottle, but since she's not used to getting a bottle at this time, she screamed the house down. After 45 minutes of trying I gave in and breastfed her.

She had 2 big runny poo's that day and seemed a bit grumpy. Some of my friends think this was my fault for breastfeeding her after drinking.

I did a quick google search but can't find anything solid to say how much you can have before it effects your baby.

Advice Please.

Being made to feel like an evil mother.

all the literature would say no, or wait approx. three hours per unit before feeding.

have partaken regularly since dd quite young. she is 17mths, still breastfeeding and has shown no signs of any form of illness, mental impairment or drunkness!!

i tend not to drink spirits (orfizzy drinks however)! stick to beer or wine.

I would have bf in that situation. Very little alcohol gets into the milk anyway, As a rule of thumb your liver processes 2/3 of a unit every hour, so you would only have had around 1 unit of alcohol in your system and less in your breastmilk. Maybe she just has a tummy-bug?

Do a search on Tiktok and alcohol and you will find your reassuring answer to this.

nice of your friends to make you feel bad

if you stopped drinking at midnight, then you had 5 hours for the alcohol to get out of your system, and 1 glass of wine and 3 pimms , which is diluted is hardly a mahoosive binge drinking sesh

please don;t feel evil

Having breastfed almost constantly for 14 years, I've done my fair share of drinking.

What helped me rationalise it was the fact that

1. the amount of alcohol in breastmilk is the same as the amount in your blood.

2. say you drink just above the driving limit of 80mg/100ml blood - let's assume the concentration in your blood is 0.1% (1000mg per litre, or 1g per kg), compared to the amount in wine of 12%. This is in the region of a bottle of wine.

3. going along with the above assumptions, your baby gets 1/120 the amount of alcohol you have, assuming equivalent volumes of liquid - you can adjust up and down as appropriate.

4. if you feed your baby some time later, they will receive even less alcohol, and the alcohol they get is processed by their liver meaning the amount in their bloodstream is correspondingly low (0.01 the amount in their milk).

My guess would be that the grumpiness and runny poos were coincidental. Will hurridly add that I am no sort of an expert at all, but while feeding dd there were a couple of times when I even fed her slightly tipsy and she had no side effects whatsoever.

I did a lot - a lot - of research on alcohol and bfeeding, reading many learned reports online

and I decided that it was okay (unless you were pissed each night obv!)

kids poo runny sometimes. God what dreadful friends trying to make you feel bad!

Pour yourself a glass of wine love and forget all about it

A glass of wine (not a magnum!) is a brilliant anti-colic device at 5pm

I'm not a big drinker, and get steaming drunk very rarely indeed, but I have never avoided bf-ing when pissed. I'm guessing that it's OK once in a while, but probably more of a potential problem if done regularly.

Feel obliged to add..

YER CAN'T GIVE A BABY BOOZE

(Can't believe no-one else has)

Not unless you are Orthodox Christian and give them communion wine, policy

Well, if we're doing confession, I fed DD on Sunday having had 3 glasses of champagne. The only effect it had on her was to make her grumpy when she woke during the night because I resolutely put her back in her bedside cot after each night-feed. After 2 weeks or so of co-sleeping with a too knackered to object mummy, she was absolutely livid!!!

Ok, not feeling so evil.

The Booze F' Baby title was from Vic Reeves, far too long ago, so wasn't suggesting you give a baby booze.

Yes, a freind who also has a 8wk baby (the new Jesus Christ) and another girl I know had a go at me.

I usually have a glass of wine or a beer in the eveing as I know she's not going to feed for hours, I guess I was just being over cautious.

ScarySienceT - Wow, thats amazing, you have done your homework, think I might email that to my friend.

Cheers Ladies Clinks Glass

Sushi - I know (re. Vic Reeves). As i recall, it used to go like this:

Got any booze f'baby?
YOU CAN'T GIVE A BABY BOOZE

and on, and on.

I should have been revising for my finals, you know. Not watching Vic and Bob videos and drinking Mad Dog 20-20. (Not whilst breastfeeding, I'd like to make that quite clear.)

Slaps ones head in a doh kind of way

I forgot about that, I only remembered the "Got 'ny booze f' baby?"

Must have been all that 20-20 or Thunderbirds addled my brain.

Did you eat anything dodgy whilst in drink? Just wondering if that might have had the effect rather than the booze - dd always had horrible poos if I ate anything garlic in it while feeding her - fussy madam! (Strangely enough, she now adores garlic bread...)

And I always thought the reply was "YOU CAN'T GIVE BOOZE TO A BABY!" [slinks off ashamed of her own comedy nerdiness]

oooOOOoooo the fine details LoveCat, you're right

I had puy lentils the day before and wizzed some up for her dinner too. She's usually fine with lentils but I guess these could've been different.