How to avoid booze when no-one knows you're pregnant

[PurplePoppy]

Not pregnant yet, but just wondering... I'd rather not drink in the first trimester. How do I subtly turn down booze for 12 weeks? How did you do that without everyone IMMEDIATELY guessing you were pregnant? Does that make me sound like an alcoholic? I'm really not, but its the first thing I assume if a friend doesn't drink on more than one occasion when everyone else is.

What did you do/are you planning to do?

say you're on antibiotics.

For me it was easy, every knew I was on Metformin to try to conceive, and you really shouldn't drink alcohol with that so I had given up drinking already.

Say you are on antibiotics and can't drink.

Say you don't fancy a drink.

Say no.

just say your on anti biotics or some sort of hayfever pill you cant drink on

or order your own - fizzy water with lemon and ice looks very like gin and tonic.

Recovering from a tummy bug also worked quite well for me as also covered why I didn;t want to eat certain things.

Message withdrawn

i arrely drink anyway so turning down drinks wasnt an issue for me.

i think its rather strange when people assume there must be a reason why you dont drink.

best to buy your own

people guess soon enough anyway im afraid!

my work guessed because one day apparently i stroked my tummy in a meeting and it went round the office in one day!

volenteer to be the driver everytime.

I ade sure that I only ordered an acoholic drink when it was mine or Dh's round - and got a G&T without the Gin. Then people just thought I was having a light night rather than not drinkign it all.

If your other half is available, get the same drink as him, and play swap the glass all night. This works best when you are mingling and can easily put your glasses down together, and then pick the other one up.

Worked a treat for me last night - as far as everyone else was concerned, i drank a glass of champagne, at least 2 glasses of red wine. He was quite drunk by the end of the night though!

Virgin cocktails, and stunt G&T (i.e. tonic water with ice and a slice) also good, as they look very much like the real thing.

at houses say yes to a glass of wine, just don't drink it

if you're not pg yet why not give up now? then if people ask you can say 'no', and by the time you do fall pg they will have probably forgotten about it

alternatively you could say you are detoxing, it has been giving you headaches, you're on Metronidazole, you've given up for a bet, etc etc etc

I remember saying that I was either too hungover to drink or that I was on antibiotics, which combined with drinking cranberry juice made everyone think I had cystitis - that tended to put an end to any further questions.

Having said that at larger gatherings it's really easy, as poppy says, to drink water and make it look like alcohol. I got through my own 30th birthday party without anyone realising I wasn't drinking. If someone gives you a drink, just wave it around a lot and then put it down somewhere and forget about it - that happens all the time at parties.

2 of my friends did guess though as I wasn't drinking when I went round to theirs - very rare occurrence in those days...Now I am pregnant again but still breastfeeding so the perfect excuse for not drinking, this time no one is even batting an eyelid.

or have a glass of wine but dont drink it!

this is what SIL did and fooled everyone for 5months! DB drank her drink and no one noticed.

antibiotics or other medication is good. I had severe migraines at the time (pregnancy hormones put a stop to migraines!! hooray! still get headaches though ). I couldn't mix migraine meds with alcohol and had them often so everyone accepted that.

I hope this doesn't happen to you but I was too ill to go out in my first 12 weeks anyway due to all day sickness! We just told people we had other plans when fixing dates etc.

Here's my failsafe plan (has worked so far!)

Accept that first drink offered and make sure as many people as possible hear you accept it/order it. Your usual level of enthusiasm is required at this point so it looks authentic. Make sure it's a vodka and coke, or a G&T, so later on you can replace it with a plain cola or tonic. When you get it, let everyone see you take a sip or two (note: pretend to take a sip!!) thereafter leave it on the table/bar/in the loo & get a soft drink.

If anyone is going to suspect anything it's at refusal of the first drink. It's psychological. Get past that and you are safe, mainly because they are all getting too tipsy to notice!

Just say you're driving!

wow, love all the creative answers! thanks everyone! x

We had two tactics - one for parties was that DH and I would drink the same drink (glass of wine or bottle of beer) and then we would put them down on the same table and swap. Obviously DH can't drive home after this as he ends up drinking twice as much as everyone realises. And you have to take teeny tiny sips occasionally.
The other thing we would do at pubs is that DH would get the first round in and would get me a non-alcholic beer (in a glass).

Cranberry juice with lime (looks like a sea breeze)

or

non-alcoholic beer (obv you will need to put this in a glass) if you are ordering yourself

or
all the things everyone else said!

Also bear in mind that (if you find yourself in circumstances where you are going to order or be handed an acoholic drink to then hide/lose or give to your DP) that a SIP will not make your uterus fall out.

If you're anything like DW (i.e. will always have a drink when out with friends) then I suspect people will see straight through the I'm tired/ on antibiotics/ driving excuses unfortunately. DW's route was to always get the first round in and get herself a 'vodka' and tonic alongside the other drinks (i.e. just a tonic). As someone else said, once you've had the first 'drink' people tend not to notice how many you've had and turning down a second 'drink' after the first tends to turn heads less in any event.

at madamez