Snacks for labour / meals for after birth

[Soph88888]

Exactly that...

Your recommendations for best snacks and food to take with you to the hospital.
And best meals to batch cook and freeze for coming home after the birth (with a DH that cannot cook for me so prefer to have this prepared myself) as well as essential foods to have in the house coming home from the birth?

I took in Fruit Gums and lots of Cadbury's breakfast bars. Didn't eat anything during labour in the end, but was vital post partum. Tea and toast only went so far post-baby.

Stuff you can just sling into the microwave are good. Stews/casseroles, curries (with packet rice), bolognese/meatballs in sauce (if you trust DH to cook pasta). If you get individual foil cartons, things like cottage/shepherds pie and lasagne. Anything you can eat with one hand basically.

Essential foods. Stuff to make sandwiches with. Eggs, milk. Whatever you've really wanted, but denied yourself while pregnant. I had pate. It was soooo good.

I forgot chilli con carne. Mmmmmm.

I took lucozade with a sports cap for labour but I was so in the zone that I forgot about it. Was amazing for post birth though and for getting me prepared for the timed post birth wee!

I took loads of sugary things you probably shouldn't eat but it was so good for making me feel a bit more human - Cadbury buttons, Haribo, space raider crisps, belvita soft bakes. Got a Domino's the first night home after hospital.
I did stop being a pig afterwards and had pre made meals like tuna pasta which I could just heat up and eat quickly whilst LO was napping

Me too re lucozade sports cap... any drink with that type of cap is amazing if you're lying down at any point. Just loads of non carbonated drinks... more than you think you'll need.. and a variety! Mouth was dry as the desert as I needed morphine and gas and air due to a complication. All 3 wards I was on were boiling.

I found eating lots of nuts and dried fruits helped with bowel movements afterwards! :) oh and stool softeners like movicol.

Me too for cereal bars and sweeties to suck on.
Some savory things too in case you don't like their food.

They forgot my tea and toast 😩

Baby is now a week old and I ordered ready meals for the week following birth. Is been a saviour.

Curry, Pizza, pies, filled pasta etc

Lunches have been simple - omelettes or sandwiches

To the hospital I just took a bag of haribo and polos

I didn’t have any appetite at all after birth (still not really got it back), so these were enough to keep my energy up

The hospital provided me with toast, Bananas and yoghurts

There were decent lunch and dinner options too, but I didn’t have any.
The women on the ward really liked the baked potatoes !

I had milky bar buttons and cereal bars for after my csection. I didn't actually eat them tho

I'm having a c section and have packed Lemon Drizzle Fibre One bars, a bag of dried apricots and cartons of fresh orange and pineapple juice (I've heard the first bowel can be brutal so trying to ease that as much as possible). Will probably take a filled roll too for after delivery incase the food they provide is dire.

We don't have a big freezer so no batch cooking going on here. We intend to stock up on quick and easy food like filled pasta and sauces, baked potatoes, pizzas, etc. for when I get home.

Afterwards, I just wanted to eat fatty, high calorie food, a lot of cheese and yoghurt and biscuits. In terms of batch cooking, just remember you might be trying to eat a lot whilst holding a baby. I ate a lot of a snacky stuff and finger food in the first two or three weeks.

I only had water and lucozade during my labour, sports cap on both so DH could hold the bottle while I drank. I didn’t have any appetite at all so missed out on all my exciting snacks haha.

Just thought it might be worth mentioning that I found it incredibly hard to eat for around a month after my baby was born. Food just felt like dust in my mouth, I felt sick all the time, it wasn’t very nice! I lived off loads of water and at times lucozade, full fat hot chocolate (I was breastfeeding and desperately needed the calories), porridge, and chopped up raw vegetables. I found it really worrying how little I could eat, but I don’t think it’s that unusual. My appetite came back after a few weeks. Just thought I’d mention in case it happens to you. Good luck with the birth!

Batch cook anything that you can pack with loads of vegetables so that you are getting lots of vitamins post birth. I did chili con carne, pasta with home made roated vegetable sauce, chicken curries and some tomato and lentil soup for the cold days. I put a few extra types of veg than what I normally would to try and get a few more vegetables in.

I would highly reccommend it. Those meals were a life saver at the beginning.

Thank you everyone xx

My absolute top tip for freezer meal is possibly slightly unusual - premade fajitas and fish and vegetable wraps. Anything in a wrap, really. Chilli in a wrap. Assemble, wrap in kitchen roll, wrap in foil, label and freeze.

When you want to eat it, take the foil off, keep the kitchen roll on and microwave. It's brilliant to eat one-handed while feeding.

Also flapjacks as a snack to grab easily at home after, or oat energy balls - basically anything with oats if you’re wanting to try breastfeeding!

I took so many snacks and didn't touch anything, even after birth I hardly ate anything. I lost my appetite completely.

I had a 30 hr labour and didn’t eat a single thing. From the second I got my first contraction anything that went into my mouth just made me gag. 20 hrs into my labor still at home I knew I was hungry but couldn’t feel it due to contraction pains so I decided so get some calories in I slowly drank a full bottle of gold top milk 🤢 big mistake. I couldn’t even eat my tea and toast after I’d given birth. Xx