Flowers are lovely—in fact, get mom flowers too, because she deserves them as well – but she also deserves a drink. (Some even say she deserves a hangover, but I won’t go there.)

“Mom doesn’t need a cocktail. She deserves a cocktail!” says Natasha David, bartender at Nitecap on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and mom to six-month-old Elliott. “I bring Elliot to work with me all the time, so there’s a lot of juggling different responsibilities at the same time. After I put E to bed, finish up my last bit of work, cook dinner and clean up the tornado that E and I created during play-time, there’s something very special about lying back and sipping on a drink.”

David agrees that socializing didn’t end when her baby arrived. “Whoever said that your social life is over once you become a parent was wrong!” says David. “Your social life is just different. E comes everywhere with me, it’s like I have a constant buddy, which is wonderful. You just adapt, so instead of going out for a drink with friends at midnight and staying until last call, my friends will join me for a drink at 5 p.m.”