There's nothing wrong with a glass of wine or two at night to take the edge off a long day of parenting -- or is there? Author and mother of three Stefanie Wilder-Taylor recently took a long, sobering look at just how often she was hitting the bottle, and revealed publicly that it was time for her to stop.

Wilder-Taylor not only decided to stop drinking, she decided to share her secret with the world in her ironically named column, "Make Mine A Double: Tales of Twins and Tequila" on the parenting website, Mommy Track'd: "I drink seven nights a week," she writes. "Sometimes just a glass of wine but usually two or three or even more. I always seem to have some sort of excuse like, 'Today was an exceptionally stressful day so I deserve an extra glass now that it's all done.'"

Before her last pregnancy with twins, Wilder-Taylor was a fierce defender of the martini play date; the title of her first book is a humorous nod to alcohol and parenting. In "Sippy Cups Are Not For Chardonnay," she chronicles the first years of parenting her eldest daughter, Elby.

But she quit drinking on May 22, and her story resonates with lots of moms, if the comments on Wilder-Taylor's revealing post are any indication. Says one woman: "My wake-up call on alcohol was the day I had to go get wine to finish Halloween costumes...at 10 a.m. and later in the day took [my kids] to a Halloween party at the local Catholic church having been using wine all day long."



So is motherhood driving us to drink? Maybe. "Women often start drinking heavily as a way of coping with stress, and let's face it, parenting can be stressful," says Lisa Frederiksen, author of "If You Loved Me, You'd Stop! What You Really Need To Know When Your Loved One Drinks Too Much."

She adds that drinking in front of your children -- habitually -- can be problematic for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is role-modeling how to handle the consumption of alcohol. "Believe it or not, they are watching," Frederiksen says. "As they get older and are faced with what they should do as a group of teens sitting by the pool on a hot afternoon, they recall our drinking patterns and have the sense that having a beer is the ticket."

Even younger kids pick up on drinking habits, Frederiksen says. "I recall being at a swim meet at a club where alcohol was served and the 9-year-old daughter of the woman I was talking to ran up to us and tugged her mom's arm saying, 'It's okay mommy, they have your wine here.'"

Psychotherapist Tina B. Tessina, Ph.D., says that no matter what, kids and drinking don't mix. "By all means, get together with friends, but let them do the drinking," says Tessina, author of "Money, Sex and Kids: Stop Fighting about the Three Things That Can Ruin Your Marriage." "Have lemonade instead, and be the mom you need to be."

Tessina adds that even one drink could spell disaster for parents: "For example, if you drive to and from the play date, you're driving under the influence after one martini, and can be arrested and lose custody of your kids."

That is, of course, a worst-case scenario. Most of us are social drinkers, having a cocktail in the company of adults. So how can you tell if you or someone close to you has a real problem?

"We are not aware of what constitutes 'safe' drinking drinking limits -- in other words, drinking that's not likely to cause alcohol abuse or alcohol dependence problems," says Frederiksen, who also pens the blog Breaking The Cycles. "For women, that is no more than seven standard drinks in a week, with no more than three of those standard drinks occurring in any one day."

A standard drink, she adds, is not a super-sized daiquiri: "A standard drink is 5 ounces of wine, 1.5 ounces of spirits, and 12 ounces of beer. Often the cocktails we mix contain 2-3 standard drinks." Frederiksen does caution that not everyone who abuses alcohol becomes an alcoholic. "An alcohol abuser may be able to change their drinking patterns to return to safe drinking limits," she says.

However, if moms (or dads) begin exhibiting behaviors like fighting with loved ones about the drinking, inconsistent parenting, "falling asleep" even though the kids are still up and going, and DUIs, they may be on the precipice of a problem.

Wilder-Taylor began to see some of those patterns in her own life. "I need to be present for my husband in the evening; I need to be fully reliable for all three of my children at all times and, for me, if I'm 100 percent honest with myself, I can't do that if I drink," she writes.

Let's be honest -- parenting is hard, and sometimes it's painful. I don't drink very often, but I've been known to drown my sorrows in a bag (or two) of Oreos now and then. It can be easier to dull the pain with food or drink or even drugs than to share it or face it head on. Wilder-Taylor has done just that, and in doing so, she just may light the path for another woman suffering in a similar situation.

Do you use alcohol to cope with the stresses of parenthood? Do you ever worry that you might have a problem?