Postpartum Meal Prep When It’s Not Your First Baby
When I was pregnant with my first child, I knew how important meal prepping for postpartum was and spent the last few weeks of my pregnancy going all in on preparing freezer meals to have on hand after our baby was born - we didn’t have to cook anything from scratch for almost SIX weeks after her arrival! Which was an incredible weight off our shoulders when we were learning how to care for a tiny human and surviving on such a limited amount of sleep. We don’t have a huge village by us either, so having meals that we personally prepared was huge when we couldn’t rely on others being able to help out in that area. We knew we needed to be well nourished in this new stage of life and I’m so glad we prepared ahead of time. I’ll share with you some of our favorite recipes that we prepped, but before I do that, I want to share some tips with you that I am learning during my second pregnancy currently in regards to meal prepping.
With my first pregnancy, I picked days when we didn’t have much going on to spend all day in the kitchen preparing a handful of meals - similar to batch cooking if you're a big meal prepper. However, it was exhausting on the third trimester pregnant body and I told myself I needed a different plan (with the same outcome of having a bunch of meals prepped and in the freezer before birth) for subsequent pregnancies. I couldn’t imagine batch cooking for days with a toddler at my feet who already is impatient when I’m making dinner, and who has other wants and needs that don’t revolve around helping or watching me cook! Plus that just sounded doubly exhausting!
Now that I am well into my second pregnancy and the first trimester nausea and food aversions are at bay, I feel like I can actually cook meals again thankfully! So what am I doing that I want to recommend to you? When I plan our meals for the week, I make sure I pick 1-2 recipes each week that I can make extra of for freezing and I just freeze meals as my pregnancy progresses along - in an effort to avoid the batch cooking during nesting season at the end. This is important to do for both breakfasts and lunches/dinners, not just dinner meals. You will need easy to grab breakfasts and snacks when you have a newborn; especially if you’ll be breastfeeding. We typically freeze the extra that we don’t eat for a meal now in Souper Cubes in portions that are easy to thaw and reheat, and then we vacuum seal and label them (with what they are and the date they were frozen) before storing in our chest freezer. I started this at 18 weeks in my current pregnancy, so by the time I give birth (supposedly around 40 weeks), I’ll likely have around 35 meals stored in the freezer! That is going to be so helpful in the early postpartum weeks, especially when I also have a little toddler mouth to feed! Side note here, if your toddler doesn’t eat what you eat, I’d highly suggest freezing some of their preferred meals as well.
I’m very much looking forward to nourishing my family in this way and I also want to share some of my favorite recipes with you so you can as well! My top website recommendations for nourishing meals in general, but specific to fertility and postpartum are https://lilynicholsrdn.com/real-food-postpartum-recovery-meals/ and https://www.livewildbewell.com/. I had a terribly difficult time narrowing down both websites for you to pick just two top recipes because they’re all so tasty, but… Dr Lily Nichols’ grass-fed beef and hidden liver shepherd’s pie is extremely delicious and is such a unique take on a big comfort meal. Secondly, Katie Braswell’s lemon chicken soup is so warming and healing for the postpartum body. I fortunately gave birth to my first, and will with my second also, during the cold winter months here in New England so I have the convenience of craving warming foods that are so healing to the postpartum body (soups, stews, casseroles, etc.), but if you give birth during warmer months, I would still highly recommend those recipes and nourishing your postpartum body with as many warm foods as you can!
For the days when you aren’t feeling like eating anything you prepped, or you didn’t prepare enough food, or you just want an easy and nourishing option, I highly recommend Mama Meals. My discount code LFN20 will get you 20% off your order as well! Stock up on their organic postpartum meal delivery service offerings, and I promise you won’t regret it! Chiyo is also another great meal service/planning option for the perinatal period (both prenatally, during pregnancy, and postpartum!) Nothing feels better than nourishing your body while you heal from a grueling ~9 months, and nourishing your growing family as well :)
If you try any of the recipes or use any of the meal delivery services, let me know! I’d love to hear how you’re preparing for postpartum too! :)
