New Mom Nutrition
Erin Burt
Now that the baby is here, there are a lot of sacrifices that are going to have to be made. Sleeping, showers, and alone time are a few of the things that you might not get a whole lot of for those first few months. Another thing that can go out the window at times as a mom to a newborn are regular meals and healthy foods. But this is such an important time of physical and emotional recovery, and especially if you are going to be breastfeeding, it is a time where nutritious meals shouldn’t be skimped on.
Continue taking your prenatal vitamin and get the most nutrition you can out of fewer foods:
- Salmon: It is loaded with DHA ,a fatty acid crucial to the development of baby’s nervous system. It is also found in breastmilk, but levels are higher when women eat more DHA rich foods.
- Low-Fat Dairy Products: These foods have vitamin D & calcium which are important for strong bones. If you are breastfeeding, your milk has lots of calcium in it to help baby’s bones develop so it is important to eat foods to help boost your own calcium stores.
- Lean Beef: A lack of iron can lower your energy levels and lean beef is a great source of it to help keep you going.
- Brown Rice: If you’re a veggie, adding whole grains to your diet can help boost energy levels and provide the calories needed to improve the quality of breastmilk.
- Blackstrap Molasses: If you are a veggie or just trying to cut back on meat products, this can be added to sweeten oatmeal or other baked goods and provides you with high amounts of calcium, iron, and magnesium.
- Dark Leafy Greens: These store phytonutrients that help protects against some forms of cancer as well as have lots of vitamins A and C, calcium and iron. They are also good for boosting your milk supply.
If the idea of finding time to prepare healthy meals seems impossible (and a lot of the time it definitely seems that way), the Crockpot is your friend. There are lots of recipes out there for nutrient packed meals that can cook overnight and then be frozen for later eating. Keeping up your energy levels and eating nutrient dense foods will help keep you going in those early newborn months.
Lisa is a babywearing, breastfeeding, cloth-diapering mama who loves exploring all things natural parenting.