Alternate title: “The Art of the One-Handed Meal.” 😉 Thank you to New Chapter for sponsoring this post!
When I was pregnant, you guys heard a lot about food from me – but mostly about how I really wasn’t excited about it. I spent most of the first and third trimesters just generally feeling “eh” about food – I was really hungry, and I felt worse if I waited too long to eat, but it was always really hard to decide WHAT to eat, and often there were many foods that turned me off entirely. What I wanted to eat also changed minute to minute – I remember one night calling Matt on his way home from work and telling him that I HAD to have taco salad (a childhood fave). I literally could not eat anything else ever, it had to be taco salad, and it had to be immediately. I’m sure you guys can tell where this story is going – by the time poor Matt got home from the grocery store with all the ingredients for taco salad, I had decided that taco salad was actually the last thing I ever wanted to eat, and proceeded to have chocolate milk and watermelon for dinner instead while Matt ate taco salad. Lol! So as you can imagine, now that I’m no longer pregnant I’m loving actually enjoying food again – and not having to worry about whether I’ll still want something once it’s in front of me (vs. just wanting it when I ordered it, or when we started making it).
For the first month after giving birth, I wasn’t all that hungry – the pain meds I was taking early on due to the C section were probably messing with my appetite, and I had a lot of digestive issues during pregnancy that hung around for awhile in the early days postpartum, too. I had heard from friends how crazy hungry they were when breastfeeding, but I wasn’t experiencing that myself. It probably didn’t help that my sleep patterns were so all over the place, especially at first – I’d take a 2 hour nap some days and wake up to dinner, which felt like breakfast, so it was hard to eat a big hearty meal. And we were up all night, of course, which was also weird hunger-wise because each day felt like one really long endless day vs. a day and then night. And on top of that, I was extremely sedentary that first month, even compared to the end of pregnancy where I was still walking a ton. In short, my body (and my stomach) were very confused.
And then, suddenly, about a month and a half or so after Riese was born, BAM. I was STARVING. All the time. And I have been ever since. There was that breastfeeding hunger I’d been hearing so much about! Give me all the food!!
My second breakfast is usually something sweeter – a muffin, for example, plus some fresh fruit and a whole milk latte on the side (I stick with one shot of espresso).
For lunch, I mix it up, but generally do either a sandwich with some veggies on the side, or a big grain salad bowl.
In the afternoon, I need more than one snack now, and often have to remind myself to eat amidst the chaos of the day. Riese is extremely adept at starting to cry the second I sit down to eat, which makes it easy to let myself get too hungry because I’m taking care of her rather than taking care of myself. After several episodes of getting overhungry, I wised up and started to make eating much more of a priority, usually by having one-handed snacks available to tide me over while I feed her. Things like fruit, hard boiled eggs, lactation cookies/muffins/bites, etc.
Dinner is generally all over the place in terms of what we eat, but I again make sure it’s a mix of protein, fat, and carbs, with some veggies for volume. And I make sure to have more volume in general than usual, too! Pregnancy and the postpartum period have both been good lessons to me in intuitive eating – when your hunger levels change so drastically from your norm you really have to pay attention and listen to your body because being on autopilot will mean you end up not eating enough.
In addition to making sure I’m responding to my hunger and thirst (breastfeeding makes me SO THIRSTY), it’s also important to make sure I’m meeting my nutrient-specific needs in this postpartum phase of my life, especially with regards to breastfeeding. I think it’s common knowledge to take a prenatal vitamin while pregnant, but it’s also smart to take a vitamin once the baby is born that is specifically formulated with the postpartum period in mind. Shortly after Riese was born, I switched from my prenatal to a postnatal vitamin to make sure that we were both getting the nutrients we need.
I’ve been taking New Chapter’s Perfect Postnatal Multivitamin; I like New Chapter’s postnatal multivitamin in particular for a couple reasons. First, they take a sustainable, quality, whole foods approach to their products. The perfect postnatal is made with organic vegetables, herbs, and superfoods, all of which have been chosen specifically to help moms with new babies by incorporating targeted nutrients that help nourish and provide energy, mood and lactation support.* These include fermented B Vitamins that work to support energy needs during early motherhood, and fermented iron, which is required for red blood cell production. If you’re breastfeeding, the iron, vitamin B6, vitamin D3, and iodine in particular will help to support lactation.*
Second, the multivitamin is gentle enough to be taken on an empty stomach, thanks to the fact that New Chapter uses fermented vitamins and minerals that are easily digestible. This was especially important in the early days when I was in a weird sleep-deprived haze – I didn’t have to worry about remembering whether I’d just eaten or not before taking the vitamins, and they never made me feel even remotely nauseous like multivitamins I’ve taken in the past have. The perfect postnatal is also Non-GMO Project Verified and 100% vegetarian with no artificial flavors or colors.
The other supplement I’m taking right now is New Chapter’s Wholemega™ for Moms Fish Oil supplement made from sustainable 100% wild Alaskan salmon. The essential DHA fatty acids help maintain heart health and support visual and cognitive development for babies when taken during pregnancy and breastfeeding.*
