When You're Serious About Kissing That Baby Body Good-Bye

I love drinking wine. And I mean I loooove it. It’s definitely in my top 2 addictions. Others include good coffee (but that’s so hard to find anyway), creamy organic dark chocolate, rich juicy steak (good addiction!), adrenalin-pumping workouts, and Desperate Housewives without fail every Monday night. I’ll let you try and figure out what my other top 2 addiction might be.

Anyway. As you will no doubt be aware, the whole pregnancy/breastfeeding thing kinda puts a spanner in the works when it comes to that nightly wind-down wine. Or at least it should. Even before I fell pregnant I was terrified about the idea of giving it up. And considering that I’m pro-wine for health and weight management (antioxidants-polyphenols-heart healthy resveratrol) I couldn’t even try and console myself with the idea of improved wellness. Weirdly, however, within a matter of weeks of being pregnant, I really didn’t care anymore. I spent the first few weeks trying to justify to myself that I could have a weekly half-glass, and yes, I know that some doctor’s do even encourage pregnant women to drink a half glass every night, but my research indicates a significant correlation between alcohol intake and foetal brain development. Not worth it, right?

So. As I was saying – it was tough for a little, and I did have the odd half glass. But the further my belly expanded, the more my desire for the drink waned. Coffee on the other hand – that was a daily battle. I didn’t have headaches or any other noticeable withdrawal but by gosh did I hate to miss my morning writing-with-a-coffee-by-my-side routine. Herbal stuff just doesn’t seem to fuel creativity for me.

So considering how relatively easy it was for me to give the stuff up (and admitting that my wine intake probably was starting to approach a level that could be considered ‘a problem’), I was quite psyched about the idea that I’d simply cruise through a year or so of breastfeeding without the desire to drink.

Didn’t happen. I’m definitely not the first person to use the enforced sobriety of pregnancy to try and change my drinking behaviours moving forward, but apparently I’m one of the only ones who battles the desire on an almost daily basis. For me, before I’d even made it out of the hospital, the idea of a glass of wine was in my head. I don’t know if there’s a hormonal connection there, but it seems my body was well and truly aware that the baby was gone and it wanted it’s alcohol. Now. Of course the upside of all this was that the first few times I did decide to have a drink a few mls was enough and really all I could manage. By 3 weeks or so post-baby though I was hanging for a full glass. I did have one once, and then decided it was time to man up and do my research.

According to the breastfeeding gurus, a standard glass of wine will be fully absorbed after 2 hours. Okay. That’s not so bad. Mind you, a standard glass these days is 90mls. Hmm. And the risk of letting your bub drink alcoholic breastmilk (which, by the way, follows the same process as blood alcohol, so expressing and throwing away is futile. Only time works) is poor brain development. Considering that your brain develops to almost its full adult potential in your first year of life, this is not something to mess about with. So for a while there I expressed in advance if I knew I would have a drink, and then if she woke up (I made a rule of 3 hours for one drink, just to be on the safe side), she took the bottle. Easy, right?

It was. And then the 3-month mark hit. You know that wonderful time when your baby starts to recognise who you are? It’s so cool. The one downside? She darn well knows the difference between bottle and me, and if I’m anywhere in the vicinity she sure as heck isn’t going to take the bottle. Fair enough. The good news was that this was the time she started sleeping through the night. For a blissful 3 weeks or so we were a quiet household between the hours of 7.30pm and 5.30am. And I knew that one (standard!) glass of wine consumed at 8pm was well and truly gone by 5.30am.

And then the 4-month mark hit. And it’s still going. We’re back to 2-3 wake-ups per night. And I’m missing my wine. So much! But starting to acknowledge that anything I think about and try to plan for as much as what is evident in both writing and reading this post is perhaps something I need to get a handle on. ‘Cause wine may just about be my #1 addiction but the knowledge that I’m doing the right thing for my child sure means a lot more to me. Not to say I don’t have my fingers crossed about the success of the ‘Save Our Sleep’ system of course! And not least for the sleep part of it .

How about you? Have you found it tough to stop drinking while breastfeeding/pregnant or am I the only wannabe-lush out there?

Body plus baby? Easy!*

Kat

*(We hope)

Are you currently on your own ‘body after bump’ journey? I’d love to hear from you. One of my main reasons for starting this blog (aside from keeping myself accountable) was to form a community of like-minded women. Women who refuse to become a dowdy mother figure and instead choose to embrace their new role with the exceptional health and energy that comes from being in control of their body from the inside out. If this is you then make sure you drop me a line in the comments section below!

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