mint results

No more Mint tea for me, although I might still make it for my husband, he loves the refreshing taste. And I'll keep growing the plants, if just for the lovely scent when I brush against their leaves.

The problem is they affect the baby; it passes through my breastmilk. I should have figured herbs have strong effects on people, otherwise why make a tea of it? I did notice that after drinking a fresh mint tea with my breakfast yesterday I had a slight headache, like I get sometimes from coffee. For the baby it was worse.

She had trouble sleeping all day; she'd be obviously tired and go down for a nap only to waken again fifteen or twenty minutes later. Over and over again. By evening she was exhausted, but also more keyed up, moving her arms and legs around energetically even though she sounded tired and kept yawning. After we'd tried to soothe her fussiness for two hours my husband asked what I'd eaten that day and asked "is mint a stimulant?" so we looked it up. Not only did it keep her from sleeping well, it also made her go poo all day long- I swear I changed over eight poopy diapers. And it must have affected the taste of my breastmilk, too, because she would want to nurse but make disgusted faces after sucking a few times and then suck on her hand instead, very unhappily. I actually pulled out a bottle of expressed milk from the fridge and tried to feed her that (because it was from days earlier and wouldn't have the mint in it) but we've not been successful yet in getting her to take a bottle, so that failed too. Let me just say it was a very long night.

By three am I think it was out of my system because the baby finally took a nice long feed without making "yuck" faces and then fell into a deep sleep. She's been very tired all day today but much more herself. She makes happy smiles after nursing, seems much relieved- but apparently is having bad dreams about yesterday because she cries and looks sad in her sleep!

Poor baby! No more mint! Or any other herbal teas, for that matter. I'm still curious about making tea from other herbs in the garden, but will wait until the baby's not nursing anymore. If she's that sensitive to a handful of mint I don't know what the other plants would do. Looked up a few things and definitely hibiscus is not safe!! Not going to any chances.