Dear Past Jess: What You Need to Know About Sweet Baby Jesus Beer

I'm currently sitting on the floor of the den with a bottle of carpet cleaner in one hand and a rag in the other, aggressively scrubbing a dark, sticky stain out of the rug while my one-year-old screams from the safety of the playpen. My husband Dave, bless his heart, decided to enjoy his fancy craft beer while simultaneously trying to show the toddler how to build a Magna-Tile tower. You can guess exactly how that ended.

So, dear Jess of six months ago, I'm writing this letter to you. Because if I had known what I know now about that ridiculous six-pack Dave brought home from the specialty grocery store, I'd have made him drink it in the driveway.

Why a drink with a holy name almost gave me a heart attack

Let's get one thing straight right out of the gate. When Dave walked into the kitchen holding a carton that said sweet baby jesus beer, I honestly thought it was a joke gag gift for my cousin's baby shower. It’s not. It’s a chocolate peanut butter porter made by some brewery up north. Now, six months ago, you didn't think much of it and just shoved it in the back of the fridge next to the leftover casserole.

But here's what you need to realize before you let your husband crack one of those open in the living room while the kids are loose. That craft beer is an absolute allergen bomb. My doctor, Dr. Miller, has told me absolute horror stories about hidden peanut exposure, and I’m pretty sure she mentioned that something like two percent of kids have peanut allergies nowadays. We haven't even fully tested the youngest for allergies yet! That fancy dark beer is brewed with real peanut elements and milk sugar, so if our sweet baby was crawling around and got his little hands on a spill of that stuff and then put his fingers in his mouth, we could be looking at an epi-pen situation. I'm simply not equipped to handle an emergency room trip on a Tuesday night while trying to fulfill fifty Etsy orders.

The doctor's two cents on nursing and a cold one

Now look, I'm not saying you can't have a drink. Lord knows after wrangling three kids under five all day, a cold beverage on the back porch is sometimes the only thing tethering my sanity to the earth. But Dr. Miller mentioned at our last checkup that mixing alcohol and breastmilk is basically a math equation that my tired brain struggles to compute.

She said something about waiting a couple of hours for every standard drink before you nurse, but here's the catch with this specific craft beer—it's incredibly heavy. It’s hovering around 6.2 or 6.5 percent ABV, which I’m fairly certain is way more than the cheap light beer Dave usually drinks at a neighborhood barbecue. I don't know the exact science of how alcohol metabolizes in the bloodstream, but I'm pretty sure a higher ABV means it takes even longer to clear your system. So if you're going to indulge in a glass of sweet baby jesus, you better have a bottle of pumped milk ready to go, or you're gonna be up at 2 AM with a screaming, hungry infant and a whole lot of mom guilt.

Speaking of keeping that baby happy while you wait for your system to clear, you should probably just stock up on some reliable nursery gear. If you want to wrap your little one up in something safe and chemical-free while you sip your (locked-lid) drink, check out Kianao's organic cotton baby blankets. The Organic Cotton Blanket with Polar Bear Print is literally softer than my favorite old college t-shirt, and it gives me incredible peace of mind knowing there are no weird dyes or pesticides touching his skin while he sleeps.

The coffee table is a danger zone

I swear, Dave started calling this stuff baby j just to be funny, but there's nothing funny about toddlers and open containers. You really need to stop leaving bright, colorful cans on the low tables and maybe start pouring your drinks into an adult tumbler with a locking lid because I can't handle another spill on my one nice rug.

Here's a short, terrifying list of things our three-year-old has tried to ingest in the last week easily because they were left unattended at eye level:

• A half-empty cup of my cold, day-old morning coffee.
• A decorative guest bath soap shaped exactly like a lemon.
• The condensation dripping off the outside of Dave's craft beer can.

Kids are basically tiny, fearless raccoons. They see a brightly colored can with fun lettering featuring a baby jesus, and they immediately think it's a new brand of juice box. You have got to put child locks on the bottom shelf of the fridge before it's too late.

Keeping their mouths occupied with safe things

Since we're constantly trying to fish unsafe things out of the baby's mouth anyway, let's talk about what they actually *should* be chewing on. I'm just gonna be real with you—when my mom first saw the Wooden Animals Play Gym Set I set up in the living room, she asked where the batteries go and why it didn't play awful, tinny music. Bless her heart.

I used to think these minimalist wooden toys were just for those Instagram moms who somehow have time to iron their sweatpants and drink hot lattes in perfectly clean houses. But let me tell you, I was dead wrong. Our baby will lie under that wooden elephant and just coo at it for twenty solid minutes. Twenty minutes! Do you know what I can get done in twenty minutes? I can fold a whole basket of laundry, answer three customer emails, and actually breathe. It’s beautifully crafted, holds up to the older kids accidentally tripping over it when they're running through the house, and frankly, it doesn't overstimulate the baby right before naptime. Plus, it just looks nice in my living room, and right now, I need all the aesthetic peace I can get. Worth every single penny.

And when those teeth start coming in hot and he's gnawing on everything in sight, you're gonna need reinforcements. The Bunny Teething Rattle is a lifesaver. It’s got an untreated wooden ring that he just goes to town on like a little beaver, and the crochet part is completely safe. For less than twenty bucks, it keeps him from trying to chew on the dog's toys or the sharp edge of the coffee table, which is basically my love language right now.

Look, parenting is just one long, exhausting game of mitigating disasters before they happen. So do yourself a favor: lock the fridge, make Dave drink his peanut butter beer out of a sippy cup, and buy yourself some peace of mind. Check out Kianao's full collection of wooden play gyms and teething essentials to keep your little ones safe, entertained, and away from the adult beverages.

Is sweet baby jesus beer an actual baby product?

Lord, no. It’s a craft alcoholic beverage with over 6 percent alcohol. I know the name sounds like a weird line of infant shampoo or something you'd buy at a church bake sale, but it's strictly an adult drink. Keep it far, far away from your baby.

What should I do if my toddler gets into a peanut butter beer?

If your kid has a known peanut allergy, you need to treat it like any other severe allergen exposure and call your doctor or 911 immediately, because they brew that stuff with actual peanut flavorings. If they don't have an allergy, they're probably just going to get a very nasty taste of bitter alcohol and be incredibly cranky, but I'd still be speed-dialing my doctor's nurse line just to be completely safe.

How long do I really have to wait to nurse after drinking a craft beer?

I'm not a doctor, but my doctor told me the general rule of thumb is two hours per standard drink. But y'all, craft beers like this are heavy hitters—often 6.5% ABV or more. That means it takes way longer for your body to process it. I usually wait at least three hours and chug a ridiculous amount of water just to be on the safe side, because my math skills are terrible when I'm sleep-deprived.

How do I stop my kids from grabbing cans out of the fridge?

You have to treat your refrigerator like Fort Knox. We finally installed those heavy-duty strap latches on the fridge doors because my oldest figured out how to wedge his little fingers in the seal and yank it open. Also, keep all the adult beverages on the absolute highest shelf, pushed all the way to the back behind the boring stuff like celery and mustard so they can't even see it.