Being a parent is an exhausting job, there’s no doubt about it. However, you don’t have to feel exhausted all the time. Here are some things I’ve discovered that really sap my energy and make it more difficult to keep up with my energetic family.

Not Eating
I’ve found that I really need to watch what I eat if I expect to have enough energy to run after my 5 kids. I admit that mornings are a crazy time in our house. Sometime around mid-morning I feel my energy level crash and realize that I forgot to eat!

Over-Doing the Caffeine
It’s tempting to grab a cup of coffee when I need a quick energy burst. However, over-doing the caffeine consumption can actually make you more tired when the fix wears off. Plus, too much caffeine can make you irritable, irritate your stomach, or cause heart palpitations. It’s best to watch your caffeine consumption if you hope to keep your energy levels up.

Not Sleeping
Have you ever been so tired or stressed that you can’t sleep? Or worse yet, remember how you have finally gotten your baby to sleep through the night but you are still waking up for that 2am feeding and having trouble getting back to sleep?

It can be difficult to find the energy you need during the day when you aren’t getting a good sleep during the night. I’ve heard that sleep experts recommend that adults develop a sleep routine in order to promote better sleep habits. I guess if sleep routines work for children, they should work for adults. It sounds reasonable anyway.

I’m trying to work on this subject in my own life because the holiday season is fast approaching. While I love all of the wonderful things that go along with celebrating this special time of year, I realize that it takes energy to be able to do all the things I will need to do. That means that I need to work on creating good habits now (like exercising, eating right, reducing my caffeine and getting sleep) that will enable me to find the energy I need to take me through the holidays and beyond!

At age 5, our twin boys had barely sipped soda or cola as it is commonly called here in Europe. We know that they’re bound to drink that beverage at some stage but at the moment we are simply trying to delay the inevitable. However, I still cringe when I see little children sipping cola instead of juice or water. But it seems that as children grow up, cola is actually not the real enemy – it’s the so-called energy drinks.

A recent study by Johns Hopkins scientists reported that many of these energy drinks are actually caffeinated. What’s more, some could actually contain up to 10 times more caffeine than coke or coffee although the actual amount is not reflected on the label. It’s kind of strange how drink labeling regulation works. Specification of alcohol content is definitely required but not caffeine content. Yet caffeine can also have some health risks.

There were studies, for example, which reported possible adverse effects of caffeine in pregnant women, people with heart diseases, and of course – children.

Then there’s the so-called caffeine intoxication, a clinical syndrome recognized by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases. This can occur when people consume very high amounts of caffeine and the symptoms include nervousness, anxiety, sleeplessness, agitation, insomnia, and faster than normal heartbeats. In rare cases, it can lead to death.

Poison centers in the US report that caffeine abuse can come from consumption of energy drinks especially among young people. These young people experience caffeine rushes, jolts and crash episodes as well as heart palpitations. Sometimes, they combine caffeinated drinks with alcoholic drinks, which can have potentially dangerous consequences.

US FDA requirements allow a maximum of 71 mg caffeine in a 12-ounce can of soft drink. A regular soda such as Coke and Pepsi contains about 35 mg of caffeine. In comparison, a cup of brewed coffee has bout 80 to 150 mg. Energy drinks, however, are not considered soft drinks but rather dietary supplements. They are therefore not covered by the FDA caffeine content requirements. Thus, their caffeine content could go up to 500 mg per can without consumers knowing it.

Many experts are concerned by the fact that energy drinks are actually used as performance enhancers and stimulants and can easily lead to addiction and abuse among young people.

In addition, experts also feel there is a gap in the regulation of energy drinks and their labelling. Over-the-counter drugs and other pharmacological products containing caffeine are required to have warning about the effects of caffeine in their labels. Alcohol drinks are regulated by law in terms of minimum age.

However, these so-called “dietary supplements” seem to be exempt from the laws that regulate soft drinks, alcoholic drinks, as well as medications. It’s up to us consumers and parents to pay attention to what we and our children drink.

It’s no secret among my friends and family that I have a real weakness for coffee. I’m not so great about brewing my own, but instead I visit a drive-thru coffee place almost every day. It’s not only a caffeine addiction, but it’s become a habit that I’ve tried to get rid of many times without much luck.

It dawned on me recently that this addiction isn’t only my own, but also belongs to my kids because they are usually with me when I head off to the coffee drive-thru. It got to the point to where my young kids were saying things like, “Are we stopping for coffee, Mommy?” Of course, it’s not as if I bought coffee for them, but they did enjoy juice or milk and an occasional cookie. Apparently my habit had evolved into a habit for my kids, too.

I knew it had gone too far when one of my son’s first words was “ar-backs,” which is baby for “Starbucks.”

When I did make the bold move to stop getting coffee my kids noticed it right away. For a few days they protested loudly any time we passed by a coffee place and didn’t stop.

This taught me the valuable lesson that my habits have the real potential to rub off on my kids. When I pop my knuckles, my son looks on admiringly and tries to pop his. When I chew on my cuticles my daughter starts chewing on hers too. I try my best to rid myself of these habits, or at least to only indulge in them when my kids aren’t looking.

At the very least, I’m teaching my kids that nobody’s perfect.

People who live in older neighborhoods, those not designed around cars, tend to be slimmer than those in modern neighborhoods and suburbs. Your neighborhood might be making you fat.

I can completely understand this. Until last year, I used to live in a 1980s suburb in California, built for car-owners, where the only thing I could walk to was a gas station.

Now, after moving to the Midwest, I’m lucky to live in a great neighborhood built in the 1920s. The local historical society has a cute photo from the 1930s of a car driving down a local street, with two little boys looking at it like it had landed from space. I can walk to a couple of parks, the chemist, a supermarket, my son’s pediatrician, and a cool coffee shop with my son. If I’m feeling energetic I can push a stroller to two museums and walk along a river bank.

I’ve lost 10 lbs from the walking. It’s also wonderful to be able to set an active example to my son, I’m supporting local independent businesses, and I’ve saved money on gas… although spent it on lattes. Mama has to have caffeine!

I really appreciate my neighborhood. After living in year-round-sunshine California, it was a shock that frigid temperatures kept us indoors most of the winter. So this spring and summer, we’ve been out and taking advantage of our neighborhood.

You can find out the “Walk Score” of where you live on WalkScore.com (My house got a 74 out of 100, woo woo!) and while you can’t do much about the walkability of where you live right now, it might be useful if you are planning to move home any time soon.

I’m writing this at 11:15 at night, big cup of coffee at my side, fully aware that in less than six or seven hours I’ll be crawling out of bed and starting another full day of writing, cleaning, and chasing my two kiddos around. I know I should be asleep, but hey…a mom’s gotta do what a mom’s gotta do.

This isn’t uncommon for me unfortunately, so I was quite interested when I came across an article posted by the Nursing Online Education Database: 50 Ways to Boost Your Energy Without Caffeine. My first reaction to the the title was this: “Yeah, right.” Upon reading it, though, it became apparent that they had some good points. I am trying to give up caffeine, so maybe I should try some of their suggestions. Here were some of my favorites:

1. Get more sleep. Well, yeah.
2. Exercise.
3. Get massages.
4. Get sunlight during the day.
5. Avoid people who drain you.
6. Watch your attitude.
7. Try to keep a sleep schedule.

A lot of the other tips were good suggestions for overall health, but I guess that there is a direct correlation between health, contentedness, and energy levels. Nobody knows that better than an exhausted, over-worked mom.

Perhaps tomorrow night I’ll get to bed at a decent hour.

There’s been much fuss lately over whether coffee is safe to drink during pregnancy. A summary of the current research: it’s probably safe in moderation, but don’t drink 47 cokes or ten gallons of coffee a day if pregnant.

However, doctors in the Netherlands have discovered the drinking coffee before you get pregnant may be harming your chances of conceiving. Wannabe moms who drank more than four cups of coffee a day had a 26% lower chance of conceiving naturally. Compare that to the damaging effects of smoking – reducing chances by 44%, of being overweight – reducing changes of conceiving by 29%, or drinking alcohol more than three times a week – 26% less likely to conceive.

Doctors already knew that being overweight, smoking and drinking all affect fertility, but are surprised that caffeine has comparable effects.

Conversely, fathers-to-be might benefit by drinking coffee. Men with drowsy sperm can wake them up with a cup of joe, which seems to increase sperm mobility i.e. bettering the chances of the little wiggly things getting to the egg, instead of giving up or getting a bit tired and needing to sit down and then forgetting what they are supposed to do on the way.

Random caffeine fact: spiders can’t spin a web after imbibing caffeine. They get all frantic and confused, and make something that looks like toddler art rather than a web. Spiders high on marijuana or LSD did a better job than the ones who’d drunk lattes. NASA did this research. Aren’t you glad your tax dollars are spent so wisely? (And no, my toddler isn’t on drugs.)

So for those trying to get pregnant, when you brew up a cup of coffee or find a fridge pack of Pepsi has found it’s way into your shopping cart (sneaky little things, those fridge packs) give it to your man, and hopefully it will benefit you both. And you’ll fill up the favor bank for exchanging for foot-rubs and back massages when you do get pregnant.

Today I decided to do my writing while sitting outside a local coffee shop at one of their patio tables. It was a nice change of pace, and it’s a treat I only usually get to enjoy while the kids are at preschool like they are today. The weather is beautiful, I have a coffee by my side, and I’m feeling like I could tackle any deadline.

I noticed something while I was sitting there writing. From the vantage point I had I was able to see every car that went through the coffee shop’s drive-thru. It wasn’t long before I noticed that every single car that went through while I was sitting there was some kind of family car: lots of SUVs and minivans. I then started paying attention to who was doing the driving, and it was then that I realized every single driver who came through was a woman, and all of them had car seats in the cars. Some of the moms had kiddos in the car with them, and some of them didn’t.

The other thing that all of them had in common was that they looked absolutely exhausted. Judging by the time of day – around 9:30 AM – these were all women who had finished up the hectic morning duties of getting kids fed and ready and had either dropped off their kids at school or were getting ready for whatever activities they had planned out for the day. Their stop at the coffee shop was a calculated attempt at getting a little energy from a caffeinated drink and maybe placating the kids with a juice or cookie.

It dawned on me that I am one of those women! When the kids are I set off for the zoo or library or whatever we go do, it usually starts with a stop at a coffee shop to fuel up mom. Am I running on caffeine instead of relying on the natural energy my body should be granting me from the food I eat and the sleep I get?

I think this topic needs some examination. All us stay-at-home and work-at-home parents need to take a look at how we get through the day, and what we’re teaching our kids about habits. Yes, I’m worn out, but I wonder if I need to lay off relying on a chemical to give me a little pep so my kids don’t think that’s the natural thing to do. What do you think?

I’m a relatively liberal mom, but there was one thing I was never willing to do: allow my baby to try soda. It’s probably easier because I don’t really drink soda at all, so it wasn’t much of an issue. I will admit, though, that there were plenty of times when I was horrified watching a friend share soda with babies who hadn’t even hit a year old yet.

It wasn’t just soda that horrified me, but pretty much anything caffeinated was left out of my baby’s drink repertoire. I remember going out to eat with one of the Grandmas who reached over to offer my baby a sip of caffeinated iced tea, and I leaped into action so quickly you would think Grandma had offered her poison.

I guess I’m just afraid my babies would get one taste of that stuff and then relentlessly demand it forevermore. My daughter was over two years old when she finally got a taste of soda, and if I remember right it was decaffeinated root beer. She’s four now, and I think she has had her own soda once. My son is two and still has never had his own soda before.

I don’t know…something about giving babies soda really creeps me out.

It’s not like I tell my kids, “No sodas!” but instead we just don’t really have these drinks available in our house. I hope this doesn’t eventually backfire on me and when my kids head to school they go a little crazy with soda consumption. I just don’t want them to think that every time we sit down to eat it merits a drink of soda.

How do the rest of you deal with this issue?

I love coffee. Every morning begins with a cup. Whenever I head off to a meeting or have a long drive ahead of me I’ll stop by Starbucks or another local shop and load up on some coffee. Yes indeed, I am a fan of coffee.

When I got pregnant I stopped drinking coffee with caffeine altogether. I indulged in decaf coffee once in a while, and even though I missed the little caffeine buzz I figured I was doing the right thing because of all the alarmist articles I had read that claimed caffeine could cause low birth weight and premature birth. I wasn’t going to take that risk, even though I really missed coffee.

Now some researchers are changing their mind. According to a new study by Danish researchers, consumption of caffeinated coffee might not be as dangerous as was once thought. Now some experts are saying that moderate coffee consumption doesn’t heighten the risk of low birth weight and premature birth at all, although they aren’t still so sure about the other risks that may be involved. It sounds like lack of risk may not include pregnant women who also smoke.

I don’t think this study really changes how I view coffee and pregnancy. I think if I were to get pregnant tomorrow (no, thank you) I would still nix the coffee. After all, caffeine is a stimulant, right? I don’t want to get my unborn baby hooked on a stimulant before even being born.

I can’t count the number of times that I have popped a couple of Tylenols while drinking my morning coffee. Sometimes I wake up with a little headache – not surprisingly, this usually happens when the kids wake up crying in the middle of the night repeatedly – and every morning I enjoy a nice cup of coffee to start my day. Putting the two of them together was more for the logistical ease instead of being something I did intentionally, but I never imagined that it might put my health at risk.

Then I read an article about the dangers of mixing acetaminophen and coffee. The specific reason why the combination of the two things is so bad boils down to this: Apparently, the coffee makes the acetaminophen three times as toxic to the human liver. Yikes!

This got me to thinking…how many things do I do to myself or my kids that might be endangering us? I mean, who would think that taking a Tylenol with a cup of coffee would be a potentially harmful event? I wonder if some of the other combinations I encounter throughout the day are wrecking my internal organs too. Does my multi-vitamin clash with the orange juice I have with breakfast? Does my allergy medicine become deadly when I take it with hot cocoa? My kids take allergy medicine too…what horrible drug interactions am I exposing them too?

Honestly, it makes my head spin.

I guess I have to keep in mind that the caffeine is a drug, after all, and so that means it can have contraindications to other drugs. I guess I’ll also have to pay better attention to the combinations or drugs that I expose myself and my kids to.

The day I found out I was pregnant, the lead story on CNN.com was ‘the dangers of caffeine for pregnant women.’ Ah, the Universe loves irony.

A few years ago, I sported a pin on my jacket that read, ‘Give me coffee and no one gets hurt!’ In the past year, I’d ‘cut back’ to about three or four (8 oz.) cups a day. And green tea in between.

I love everything about coffee. The taste, the aroma, the positive memory-associations of sipping a good latte after a great meal. Even as I write this, my heart is pounding in anticipation of a cup of the good dark stuff. In my first job as magazine editor, when things got rough at the office, I’d head to Starbucks for a ‘grande soy latte.’

The evening after I found out I’m pregnant, I went to my sister’s house to tell her. I noticed the fresh pot of after-dinner coffee brewing. ‘Do you want a cup?’ she asked.

‘More than anything,’ I said wistfully.

She gave me a funny look and then she remembered the news I’d just shared; and the study. ‘It’s okay. One cup won’t hurt. I drank coffee through both my pregnancies.’

‘Thanks, Mom, nice to know you cared about me!’ my niece interjected.

‘And they’re both fine,’ she concluded.

When I started experiencing the first signs of morning sickness, oh, about 2 days after the pregnancy test showed up positive, coffee lost its appeal. By the third day, my stomach turned at the scent of coffee brewing.

But the brain forgets quickly, and after a week, I was jones-ing again. By now, the caffeine headaches have gone away, and it’s pure psychological addiction.

The other night, after a particularly good dinner, I brewed myself a cup of decaf. I couldn’t even bring myself to drink it. I don’t know whether it was psychological (I’d always swore I’d never drink decaf) or if the nauseated feelings coffee brought on earlier had ruined it for me.

I’m on a quest for ‘coffee substitutes.’ I still miss the ritual of sitting down with my morning cup, checking my e-mail and preparing for the day. And I still miss everything about coffee; including, especially, the almost-instant energy perk.

It’s almost an identity crisis. Not only do I miss coffee? I miss everything it represents.

I recently tried herbal tea with ginseng. There it was the elevated heart rate, immediate perk, a burst of energy that didn’t even wear off as quickly as a caffeine high. Then I went online and learned that studies were inconclusive in regard to ginseng and pregnancy, but pregnant women were advised to stay away from the herb. Great.

I’ve started drinking VitaminWater Revive, fortified with lots of B vitamins. It hydrates, and B vitamins, as long as you stick to the recommended daily allowance, are healthy. No ‘energy burst,’ but it’s something to drink in the morning.

I’ve resorted to keeping my energy level up the natural way: exercise, limiting sugar and carbs so my blood sugar levels stay steady throughout the day, and a quick 20-minute cat nap when I really can’t take it anymore.

I’m just glad I don’t smoke or drink heavily, because I couldn’t imagine giving up two addictions all in the space of a few months!

On the heels of a Mount Sinai School of Medicine research which concludes that moderate coffee intake during pregnancy is safe and does not increase the risk of miscarriage, here’s another research saying otherwise. I have written before about confusing research, and here’s another proof.

So here’s the puzzle. The snag on earlier studies ,which concluded that even moderate caffeine intake during pregnancy is risky was this: researchers focused on high intake; researchers included women who had nausea and morning sickness — long associated with a reduced miscarriage risk in the first place — who were forced to cut back on coffee or soda consumption.

Dr. De-Kun Li of Kaiser Permanente conducted his study taking morning sickness into account, the first researcher to ever do so. The scary conclusion is that drinking 200 mg of caffeine a day, usually the amount found in two cups of coffee, significantly increases the risk of miscarriage. The stats reveal that 25% of women who consumed any caffeine suffered a miscarriage, compared to just 12% of women who didn’t.

The study interviewed 1,063 women who were pregnant between 1996 and 1998. The source of caffeine, whether teas, sodas, coffees, didn’t matter.

My baby is nice and healthy but now I really quake at those green teas I was having while pregnant. Just in moderation, but still… I’ve always said to chuck expert advice out the window, but with such serious implications of caffeine intake during pregnancy, I’d say err on the side of caution and ditch the caffeine completely when pregnant.

There is new hope for pregnant women who need their daily cuppa joe. A study from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City reported on January 9^th found that moderate coffee intake during pregnancy does not increase the risk of miscarriage.

In the study, 2,407 pregnant women consumed two cups or less of coffee each day (about 350 milligrams of caffeine) during early pregnancy, and less coffee (about 200 milligrams of caffeine) during later pregnancy. The study, therefore, cannot answer whether or not a greater amount of coffee than two cups is harmful. (Which makes sense, because who would voluntarily put their developing baby at risk?)

The women reported their caffeine intake before pregnancy, four weeks after their last menstrual period, and again during an interview. At each of these time periods, the study found that there was no statistical correlation between the amount of caffeine consumed and risk of miscarriage. Of the 2,407 women, 258 miscarried during the study.

This study confirms previous data suggesting that low amounts of caffeine is not harmful during pregnancy. In their precautions for healthy eating, The March of Dimes lists coffee under the ?Not too Much? category, suggesting that pregnant women limit coffee intake to 2 to 2 ? cups per day. However, when considering caffeine intake during pregnancy, it is also important to consider the fact that caffeine is present in a number of sodas, chocolate, and some medicines. Reading nutrition labels will help you get an accurate picture of how much caffeine you are ingesting each day.

References:

http://www.reuters.com

http://search.marchofdimes.com