What do you eat in a day when breastfeeding?

[Piggybuttons]

I'm currently breastfeeding 4 month old dc and have an awful diet. I skip meals and need to cut down on coffee and chocolate. I know I need to eat more frequently but I'm worried I'm going to gain more weight rather than lose and was hoping to get an idea of what/how much I should be eating.

I would love to get an idea of what other breastfeeding Moms are eating on an average day please.

Everything

I don't think it would have been possible for me to lose weight whilst breastfeeding due to the lack of sleep making me crave carbs and also BF just made me ravenous. I'd say 4 months in isn't really the time to be worrying about weight loss. Yes try to be healthy to get a balanced diet but equally don't beat yourself up about it...it's so much easier to concentrate on these things when life has got a bit more back to normal. 4 months is still very soon. Take it easy x

I’ve literally never been so hungry in my life as I have while breastfeeding! A normal day for me:

Breakfast - two slices of toast with two scrambled eggs, yoghurt, latte

Mid morning - slice of cake / biscuit / piece of fruit / oatcakes and cheese / porridge bar

Lunch - bowl of soup and a toastie / baguette / bagel / chunky salad / baked potato with cheese and salad

Dinner - pasta with salad and garlic bread / curry with rice and roti / halloumi fajitas / veggie sausage casserole with crusty bread

I used to skip meals and be a bit lax about food but now if I miss a meal or snack I honestly feel like my insides might cave in on me.

Should add, I’ve not been trying to lose weight but I have dropped a few pounds naturally even on that amount of food. Breastfeeding uses a lot of calories - you have to give yourself the nourishment you need.

In the early months i kept a packet of biscuits next to the bed!

My best advice is eat normally and as often as you are hungry. If you neormally eat three meals and are hungry soon after, have snacks. At some point the milk demand will go down and youll be less hungry.

Dont worry about your weight, it comes off with lots of walking which you will do more of in spring when baby is bigger. Well done xx

Just to say i lost 3.5 stone over 2 years just by walking and listening to my body. Its ok for your weight to go up after having a baby, honestly x

I cant remember when it was, maybe like 16 months into breastfeeding and i suddenly dropped like 10lbs without making any changes, just trust your body x

Breakfast I have either oats with almond milk, protein powder and a teaspoon of Nutella and chopped banana or a protein shake, so almond milk, protein powder, spinach & teaspoon peanut butter.
Lunch varies but generally eggs and a protein bagel or on toast with a baby bell and some veg.
Dinner is generally the same but a different kind of chicken and veg.
Snacks I have are things like baby bell, fibre 1 brownie, skinny cookies, fruit. I only drink water and coffee (not as a diet plan, just the only things I really like).
I do go to the gym 2/3 times a week and I live in London so I walk alot which really helps.
I do eat what I want at the weekend.
I'm naturally healthy with my diet anyway which is why I relax at weekends and I make sure I'm eating enough calories to sustain me and baby, I just make healthy choices. Breastfeeding also burns alot of calories so don't put yourself into too much of a deficit. It can also affect your milk quality if your bit eating well.
That being said, I have been up all night with my baby as she has a chest infection and I'm sat here eating a jar of Nutella with a spoon😆 focus more on healthy foods and moving more whether it's walking running or small home workouts x x

When I was breastfeeding I ate pretty much everything that wasn’t nailed down, and then sent my husband out to get me a Magnum most evenings.

Be glad you’re feeding your baby and try not to worry about your weight at this time.

I'm EBF my thirteen week old baby..

Back to normal weight but I'm always starving. Currently on holiday to Turkey so eating very healthily - Turkish breakfast, Greek salads etc.

Also occasional Efes shandy

Anyway back home I'm a two rounds of toast for breakfast, probably skip lunch - yoghurt around 4ish. Curry with rice/chicken/pasta etc

Maybe a wee bit of toast before bed

I'm hungry all the time and I've developed a sweet tooth but I try hard not to give it 🤦🏽‍♀️ it's obviously okay as milk supply is abundant and I'm back in size 8-10 clothes but I must be eating the correct amount as my weight is steady, I'm not losing anymore

3 meals plus many snacks (chocolate, cake, fruit, nuts, yogurts) everyday. And loads of water. I limit coffee to 2 per day and not after 4pm. In terms of size I'm 5 months pp I've just gone back into my pre pregnancy jeans. I've not been trying to lose weight, just eating when hungry and walking loads.

I was ridiculously hungry when I first started breastfeeding but it did calm down eventually.

At about 6 weeks PP, I began intermittent fasting and I've stuck to the 16:8 method on most days. It's really easy and I find it simple to follow. I do tend to eat like a pig at the end of the fast (inc. all of the biscuits!) but by the afternoon I'm full again.

My son is just over 4 months now and I'm 0.8kg off my pre pregnancy target.

When my son let's me have some free time, I will focus on nutritional meals but for now I still feel in survival mode.

I'm doing Intermittent fasting, eating my normal pre pregnancy diet and losing weight.

Thanks everyone. Yesterday I had a latte, roast dinner and then two helpings of sticky toffee pudding in the evening and the day before was a latte, spaghetti and meatballs and then too much chocolate before bed.

Ironically I had a generally healthy diet eating a healthy breakfast lunch and dinner with lots of fruit and veg before I was pregnant.

I keep telling myself I will eat better as I worry about the quality of my milk although baby is gaining weight but I end up being too busy or forgetting to plan meals. I just seem to be in bad habits I'm finding difficult to break

My day looks a lot like @JapanJetplane 's, except that I can't manage such big meals so mine get split up into snacks, e.g.

Breakfast - two slices of toast with toppings, coffee

Mid morning - coffee + cake

Lunch - bowl of soup and bread, tea/coffee

Snacks - cheese or nut butter, fruit, biscuit

Dinner - veggie fajitas and salad

Snack - yoghurt, biscuit

This is my second baby. With first baby my weight plummetted and I was underweight by 3mo. I suspect weight loss will be slower this time because I am eating more cake. I also count as high exercise levels.

I ate everything! (Not bf not but can remember)

Anything with oats really appealed to me, which is apparently good for milk production. Museli, porridge, hob nobs in particular. But just all good!

It doesn’t make me hungry at all. I really want to eat properly/healthily though, I just don’t find any time to think or prepare, so I just grab whatever. I’m only five weeks in though.

I basically live on grabbing a teaspoon of marmite paean it butter every so often between feeding/holding/being attached to the baby 😳

I need to eat more and eat better. I was keen to lose the weight I gained though, had enough of the same few maternity outfits I’ve been rehashing for months.

• marmite peanut butter.

I have 3 under 5, EBF the 3 week old and DH works away. So I'm eating what I can whenever I can. Some days thats lots and some days its one meal. Last week I made a massive pot of pork carnitas and had a burrito every day. Some days it was dinner, some days it was lunch and on one particularly bad day it was breakfast. But my goodness they were yummy. Rough translation, I am not eating very healthily at the moment.

Thankfully I seem to have gotten over my pregnancy craving for crisps (low blood pressure) and my early day cravings for chocolate.

Current craving is really cold full fat coke, where I previoualy only drank water with maybe a fizzy juice once a month or so. I am also drinking about 4 cups of tea a day.

Bubs is sleeping quite well at the moment, though big 2 have been poorly. I dread to think how much weight I'll put on over 4 month sleep regression but theres not much to be done about it. Time is not on my side. I do at least find that although I haven't lost my baby weight and I've stagnated that I'm not going up the way (yet).

I ate a lot.

The key is to try not to overdo it on sugar.
Whole grain carbs, plenty of protein & fat. All the sugar will just make your blood sugar yoyo and you will be getting hungry a lot when you don't need it.

Eg my day would often be like this:
Breakfast - decent bowl of porridge
Snack: fresh fruit and some nuts
Lunch - big bowl of thick lentil and bacon & veg soup, with whole meal bread, plus a natural yoghurt & some fruit,
Snack: salad and some cheese
Dinner: homemade curry : chicken, onion, tomato, spinach, ground onion, chickpeas or lentils, dash of cream or yoghurt, with rice.
Dessert: homemade apple crumble

I'm not a saint, so my weakness was there was often a couple of biscuits or a piece of cake at baby cinema/cafe in their but it was those extra I didnt need.

I lived on cheese, cake and flapjacks. Basically anything I could grab and hold in one hand.

My almost 2 year old seems to be constantly feeding again lately so it is back to all the junk food just to keep me going!

@DeepaBeesKit that sounds like a lovely healthy day! I particularly like the sound of that soup and am off to Google a recipe

I’m also BFing a 4 month old. My diet is AWFUL! I have about 3 stone of pregnancy weight to lose but I am so hungry all the time I just can’t bring myself to do it right now.

I’ll be totally honest, this is what I ate yesterday:
Breakfast: 2 slices of chocolate toast, latte, grapes
Snack: a big chocolate brownie
Lunch: chorizo and leek pasta bake with salad and garlic bread
Dinner: roast dinner (beef, lamb, roasties, parsnips, broccoli, carrots etc.) with apple crumble and custard
During the day I snack constantly, I’m eating about half a pack of chocolate biscuits a day plus fruit and smoothies. However I don’t drink anything else besides water.

In the first 6 months I ate everything in sight...mainly biscuits! I didn't put on a single pound. My hunger finally decreased as my son started solids. He's 15 months now and I'm still hungrier than I was before breastfeeding but not quite as ravenous and I can control what I eat now. Don't be too hard on yourself, 4 months is still young and all your baby's nutrition so it's understandable you need more calories to produce milk!