How has your beer drinking changed with a newborn?

My little guy just turned 7 months. With my wife still breast-feeding or pumping breast milk into bottles, she's not at liberty to imbibe very often, so my drinking habits haven't changed too much, because there's always a sober person in the house in case of an emergency (as someone mentioned above).
But I've cut back big-time on going out for a few. Instead, I've stocked my beer fridge pretty well over the past several months, and would rather enjoy a beer or 2 or 3 at home on the couch instead of at a bar, away from them. I'll have a beer or two with dinner, and then after we put the baby to bed, my wife will usually have a session (where she'd usually have an IPA or 2) while I maybe have a stronger beer. So....I guess it's changed my wife's drinking habits more than mine!

 

When both kids were born, the only impediment was me being too tired to go out to drink. So i drank at home

 

I stick to lower abv beers when drinking witha new born, they tend to pass out when drinking 10% imperial stouts.

 

well back in my day the newborn could actually keep up. These days they are lightweights.

 

Drinking more at home instead of going out and even when at home you have to watch the intake as you never know when a trip to the Emergency Room will pop up on a Friday night with the neighbors over and my buddy wrestling with my 8 year old and hearing the "snap"

Talk about the Spanish Inquisition (my buddy stayed home)

Now my son is 24 and likes IPA's DIPA's Wit's and fine bourbon, my daughter is turning 21 and is into Cider's and my wife has now found she likes craft beer too so it has gotten quite a bit more expensive drinking at home

 

Don't go out much, but drink plenty of amazing beers at home. I have a 6, 4.5, and almost 3 year old. Joined BA when my son barely turned 1. My BA stats are pretty solid. You just need to balance everything with your wife and make sure you get up at night sometimes and help with the feedings or change your fair share of diapers. When you get home from work let her go vedge and you hang with the baby, drink a beer, and give her a much needed break. Congrats, nothing more important than being a good Dad. You can be a good Dad and a good BA.

 

Just added a three-month old son to the mix (already had 12 & 8 yo daughters). I can't say my drinking/tasting has decreased. I find what has decreased is my frequency of BIG beers. I'll still enjoy them but now they're usually consumed with friends.

 

I read this as in "they don't mind"... Was thinking your baby must be pretty open-minded about drinking.

But yeah, I've made similar choices. You definitely want to avoid getting drunk if you have any type of responsibilities with respect to your baby in the morning (or worse, middle of the night). I guess each case is unique, but I've found there is still time for beer, it just takes a little more planning.

 

got a 20 month old daughter over here, and i'd say to enjoy the freedom you have with a newborn and then infant while you can... before they're mobile it's easy to take them to a baby-friendly bar or brewery and have a beer or two while they're snoozing or gazing at the lights on the ceiling. I definitely took her in the ergo carrier to a few bottle releases at Other Half as well.

Once they're toddling around it quickly became unfeasible to keep doing that; too much time chasing them around and feeling like they're starting to impede on other folks there.

We have gotten to the point where we felt that we could leave her with the grandparents and head to VT for a beercation weekend. But, it was planned far in advance, there's definitely no trips at the drop of a hat for special releases, just hoping that they've got something good when we're there. And for beer releases around town, I'd rather take her to her tumbling class and spend that time with her than get in line at 10am just for some beer. In 20-30 years I highly doubt I'm going to look back and wish I'd spent more time waiting in line for beer...

 

Changed what time I drank beers. Up at 2am, he's gonna have one, so am i...4am...same deal...

 

Thanks for posting this OP, I was very curious on everyone's response as my wife is expecting in August. I was also wondering how you guys handled drinking in the weeks leading up to the pregnancy? I feel like I am going to be paranoid about having too many beers.

 

After our first, I'd say that my consumption stayed the same or went up. That said, she was a great sleeper from the get-go and my wife was off work with her for a year.

With our second, however, consumption went WAY down. Not only was he a terrible sleeper (we just sleep-trained him, and so far so good), but my wife went back to work after 11 weeks... and I took paternity leave and stayed at home with him all day for 5 weeks.

I'll just say, taking care of a 3-month-old full time will drive the desire to drink right out of you... all I wanted to do was sleep. Going into my paternity leave, I imagined there'd be a lot of down time with his naps, I'd casually enjoy some session beers around lunch time, then kick back at night and have a couple. In reality, I spent all day trying to keep him fed and not miserably crying, then collapsed in a useless heap at night.

So, I'd say it depends?

 

This is a great point. If you plan on being a significant part of your wife's birth team, I'd say making sure you aren't shellac'ed any time after 37 weeks is probably a good bet. You know, unless you want a very, very unhappy new mother.

 

A lot more milk stouts now...

 

Although my kids are 22 & 17 now, I can say that my beer consumption (by volume and schedule) did not really change then, and has not over the duration. What has changed for the greater good is the availability and variety of better beer.

As an aside, wait and see what the kids learn in school.......... I'll never forget sitting at the table one evening with the family and enjoying a beer with my dinner when my son suddenly inquired .. "dad, did you know that beer has alcohol in it?"

 

My son is 8 months old now. Not a whole lot has changed besides I buy a little less beer. More selective on what I buy. Slowed down a little on trading.

 

My little nugget is almost 16 mos. old. When he first got here, I didn't have a drop of alcohol for about 10 days for a combination of factors. For one, I was terrified that I was now responsible for a human, and a helpless one at that. Initially I didn't want any possible impediment to knowing what the hell I should be doing. But I also didn't want to miss or have any of the fascinating stuff fogged by alcohol. And sleep was also a big part of it--any time that would have been an opportunity to drink, I preferred to just "rest my eyes", as it were.

But long-term, I don't think my habits have changed that much, because the bulk of my drinking was already done at home, out of my own personal supply. Most of my time at bars was spent at happy hours or weekend afternoons, not late night outings, so I still do that, just less often.

The main area in which I notice a difference is when it comes to special tappings/events at bars and/or bottle shares and tastings with friends. With the little one, so much more planning is required whether it's getting Mrs. Lambic to watch him, finding a sitter, or in extremely rare cases, taking him along. With all that extra planning, it means that it has to be more of a once-in-a-while thing, and it has to be a big enough deal to warrant making plans around it--for example, Zwanze Day. Whereas I'm not going to bust my ass to make it to a tapping of Abyss (even though I love that beer). Even with the picking and choosing, I often miss out on big time events (like a local bar's 2-year anniversary where they had BA Abraxas, Madagascar and many other great beers on tap) because they just won't work.

In the long run, I would say that my overall satisfaction with enjoying beer has remained the same, even if the specific habits have required modification. And honestly, given all the joy he has brought into our lives, I think I would be able to handle an even more severe cutback and still be plenty satisfied.

 

Our baby girl just turned 3 weeks today! She is the best thing to ever happen to both of us. We never really went out too much before she came along anyway and would generally prefer to dine in and have a few drinks every now and again. Since the baby has come along, we're juggling schedules and throwing travel in to see family almost every weekend since her birth, special "occasions" are about all we have time for to have a drink or two.
Since my wife is pumping, she doesn't want to waste a few good ounces of milk because she had a few drinks, so she shy's away, she doesn't really miss it from before being pregnant I guess, more power to her, I couldn't do it!
Having said that though, my consumption has gone way down in "solidarity" since we found out she was pregnant.
We still find some time to brew and whatnot, it's definitely not the same, but wouldn't trade it for the world!

 

My new guy is a week old tomorrow. We've only been home 2 days now (C-section) so thus far my consumption as an average has been affected. I brought a couple bottles to the hospital, expecting things to go a bit easier than they did.
A routine induction (Thursday morning) turned into 24+ hours of pitosin, then to C-section Friday afternoon when things weren't going as expected.
I didn't have anything until I ran home Sunday afternoon for a few things and a shower/shave. Popped a can for that bit.
Opened one of the bottles on Monday night and brought the other home full.
Since then, my at-home hasn;t changed much - a bottle in the evening. I am missing the ACBF this weekend.
I / we didn't go out to bars all that often, so that will likely dwindle, but going to restaurants and having a beer with dinner likely won't change, though I bet having a second one will change for a while.

 

Going out to restaurants with a newborn, baby, In between, toddler, etc... That is ambitious.