Breast feeding nutrition guilt

You’ve battled through sore nipples in the beginning. You have found a good latch that works for you. You’ve got into a nice routine. You are breastfeeding. Well done.

You are feeling really proud of your achievements and rightly so. Then a health visitor, partner, relative, friend reminds you that your milk is only as good as what you are eating. Oh man.

I get it, I do. I was exactly the same. There were days when I lived on crisps and chocolate and at best a piece of toast or a bowl of cereal.

It feels like the world is out to get you. Just when you were thinking you had things kind of under control you’ve now got to ensure you eat healthily. This usefully means cooking. Which probably you either haven’t got the time for/ haven’t got the hands for as you have a baby attached to your boob for most of the day or if you manage to get 5 minutes away from your baby before they are due their next feed or bum change you would rather spend the time sleeping. Especially as you will have had a broken night of sleep getting up to feed the baby as annoyingly your partner can’t do the breast feeding for you. Yes, if you expressed they could get up and give them a bottle but then your boobs will be rock solid from missing a feed or you will have to express to release the pressure and in which case you might as well have just done the feeding in the first place.

The first thing to bear in mind is that the baby gets all of the good stuff first so baby is probably getting all that they need. Phew. One less thing to worry about. However, that will mean that you probably aren’t getting what you need. You are left with all of the remaining bits that the baby didn’t need. You don’t have to be Einstein to work out that for someone who has to keep making milk, care for a new baby and generally try to function let alone if you are attempting to look after other children or your partner or the house that your body could do with some quality fuel.

How is that going to be possible? Well, thankfully I have a few suggestions for you.

You could ask friends and family to cook you a dinner or better still do some batch cooking for you to fill up your freezer.

Using a pressure cooker is one of my favourite ways to cook as I just throw everything in and walk away and when it is finished cooking it turns itself off and maintains the perfect temperature for 24 hours! That means no matter how many unexpected feeds, nappies or cuddles you need to give when you eventually get back to the pressure cooker your dinner will be ready and delicious not burnt, cold, congealed or ruined.

A slow cooker is another good way to ensure that you can have a nutritious dinner at night. The beauty of a slow cooker and pressure cooker is that once the food is in you don’t have to keep attending to it.

Another bonus and my top tip would be if using a pressure cooker or slow cooker make extra and freeze it. You’ve heard of the saying ‘cook once, eat twice’ well, I’m a fan of cook once and get as many extra meals as you can from it. Even if I know that I am going to be the only one eating dinner when it comes straight out of the pot I will still cook as much as will humanly fit into the pot to keep me stocked up and keep the need for cooking again at bay for as long as possible.

Cutting up and preparing all of the food to go into the pot can be time consuming and you are probably thinking how will I find the time to do all of the prep? This is where Ocado answered my prayers when my son was first born. I liked using Ocado as they have one hour delivery slots. I don’t know about you but I hate having to wait in for long periods of time and when your baby starts having a melt down and you want to take them for a walk to calm them down and still have potentially another hour and fifty nine minutes before you can leave the house (not including unpacking time) I found that more stressful than helpful. Ocado also do bags of prepared, chopped up veg. This saves so much time as all you have to do is open a few bags, pour them into the pot and walk away to return later to a healthy and hearty stew, for example.

I do realise that it is more expensive to buy food in this way than to prepare it yourself and that this may not be financially sustainable for everyone but for me this solved my problems in the early days. Something else to note is that you can freeze the frozen vegetables once they are cooked, meaning you can save time and still load up your freezer with dinners. I am ashamed to admit that I wasted a lot of fresh food in the early days when I bought a lot of food with good intentions to cook healthy dinners but was too exhausted and couldn’t face cooking so they went off in the fridge and then went into the bin. So for me buying prepared frozen food from Ocado saved me money (and the environment) as I was no longer throwing food away.

Obviously you could buy ready meals. Healthier options are available these days although; again this is a more expensive way to feed yourself.

Remember that some of the best super foods are cheap to buy and very quick to cook.

Beans on toast is a regular favourite of mine. Those beans are packed with goodness including iron which lots of women are lacking straight after giving birth. They fill you up for quite a long time and are very quick to cook, therefore reducing the need to snack constantly.

Eggs are another cheap and quick super food. Fried or scrambled eggs on toast were often my go to meal. However, if you have the time making an omelette is an easy way to add extra veg and increase the nutritional value of your meal.

Another favourite of mine was a bean salad. My most basic, time poor, version of this involved opening a bag of washed, ready to eat salad leaves and pouring them into a bowl. Then opening a tin of salad beans and pouring them into the bowl. Done. If I had more time I would add avocado (another super food) and a boiled egg, and any other salad I had lying around.

Bananas are a quick and convenient snack that come conveniently wrapped in their skin. Again, this is another super food that will fill you up and prevent you from snacking on ‘bad’ foods. I used to throw a banana in my bag for when I was out and about and hunger struck. This was also a useful addition to my bag, once my babies had started weaning.

A handful of nuts is a healthy snack idea and it is just as easy to grab a handful of nuts as it is a chocolate bar.

Above all, the important thing to remember is that you are trying your best. You are doing an incredibly hard job and are exhausted. Some days you will only be able to open a packet and grab a biscuit and on other days you will find the time to cook dinners or at least beans on toast. Look at the week over all and try to get a balance between healthy foods and convenience foods. No point in feeling guilty about what you are eating, that just adds to the pressures and makes you feel bad.

#breastfeeding #guilt #mumguilt #parentguilt