Of course you can go out tonight! While you are gone have caretaker give milk based formula. If you have about one drink an hour your body will filter out the alcohol. Throughout history mothers around the world have had wine and beer while nursing, if you're not getting blinding drunk day after day dont feel guilty for enjoying a night out.
I just dont want this to discourage you or any one else from breastfeeding;
it is hard to find research on drinking a lot while breastfeeding because mothers who drink too much during breastfeeding often drank while pregnant and we know how dangerous that can be.
I also dont want you to buy into the theory that being a good mother is all about sacrificing yourself, never taking care of yourself, never taking time for yourself, those moms can be exhausted, cranky, yelling, annoyed, kids always late cuz they take on too many activities, the best moms are balanced, happy moms who can truly enjoy being a parent!
It is not recommended to drink excessively while nursing because of the passage of the alcohol into the [breast] milk," the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)
Alcohol levels in breast milk peak about 30 minutes to an hour after drinking alcohol (on an empty stomach). Journal of Human Lactation
Dr. Jack Newman, member of the LLLI Health Advisory Council, says this in his handout "More Breastfeeding Myths": Reasonable alcohol intake should not be discouraged at all. As is the case with most drugs, very little alcohol comes out in the milk. The mother can take some alcohol and continue breastfeeding as she normally does. Prohibiting alcohol is another way we make life unnecessarily restrictive for nursing mothers.
Thomas W. Hale, R.Ph. Ph.D., member of the LLLI Health Advisory Council, says this in his book Medications and Mothers' Milk (12th ed.): Significant amounts of alcohol are secreted into breastmilk although it is not considered harmful to the infant if the amount and duration are limited. The absolute amount of alcohol transferred into milk is generally low. Beer, but not ethanol, has been reported in a number of studies to stimulate prolactin levels and breastmilk production (1, 2, 3). Thus it is presumed that the polysaccharide from barley may be the prolactin-stimulating component of beer (4). Non-alcoholic beer is equally effective.
Adult metabolism of alcohol is approximately 1 ounce in 3 hours, so mothers who ingest alcohol in moderate amounts can generally return to breastfeeding as soon as they feel neurologically normal. Chronic or heavy consumers of alcohol should not breastfeed.