Breast feeding calories

[CheerfulSoul]

Does anyone have any tips for getting the extra calories I need now without getting into bad habits that I will struggle to break later?

I love this question, although you never know what you'll get addicted to.

Avocados, bananas, pasta with vegetable & fish sauces, risottos, broad beans. For me, it was the best thing about breastfeeding.

You don't really need that many extra calories - at least not so as it's significant. I ate normally but didn't worry too much about portion size and had the odd extra biscuit. In fact unless you want to pile on the pounds I would try and avoid changing your normal eating habits. With DD1 I felt hungry all the time and I really struggled to lose my baby weight even though I was bf as I was definitely eating way more than I needed to (finally shifted it 11 months after she was born when I joined weight watchers). With DD2 and DS I realised that a lot of the 'hunger' I had felt with DD1 was actually thirst - you need to drink, drink, drink while bf. With DD2 and DS I ate healthily, but not really any more than normal and I was back to pre-preg weight by 12 weeks with super huge centile jumping babies (they sucked it out of me!).

That said.... carbs ruled... I was addicted to pasta and risottos (just try and hold off on too much cheese with that)

Thanks guys.

I had understood that breast feeding required an extra 500 calories a day. So 2500 instead of 2000. I've been eating loads of cake, biscuits and chocolate because I'm so hungry but the weight is just dropping off me. I'm well below my pre-pregnancy weight already, in just 12 weeks.

I think that I need the extra calories but I'm sure I shouldn't be getting them from the rubbish I'm currently eating!