Meal ideas with morning sickness (ALL DAY!) and indigestion

[TomatoSoup69]

Hi gang,

Did a search but nothing much came up.

I'm almost 10 weeks pregnant. Struggling with nausea all day (only vomited a few times so far) and indigestion all day and all night. Oh and constipation. It's GREAT. /s

Midwife keeps advising me, very sensibly, to have 6 small meals a day.

Problem is I don't fancy anything, and I get too tired to cook most evenings. My partner is happy to cook but he's not great at thinking meals up, and in his defence everything he suggests makes me feel ill to think about it. I need to do some kind of meal plan for the week/shopping list today - I've meal planned for a long time and usually enjoy cooking - but I can't think of anything I'd want to eat, and I don't know how to plan for potentially six smaller snacky meals instead of my usual three squares.

Any advice? What would/do you eat?

Meal replacement shakes and vitamin packed smoothies were my go to! Do a nice fruit and veg blend with added hemp for protein and other seeds like chia etc. Also, avocado on toast was great for me, nice and easy but some healthy fats.

The only thing that helped me with sickness was always snacking on carbs... felt like it soaked up the acid feeling a bit.

So instead of thinking of them all as meals, perhaps try to eat something carby every couple of hours: toast, crumpets, crackers and cheese, Scottish oat cakes, rice cakes.

And then once the carb has lined your stomach you might feel able to eat something more like a meal.

It worked for me but of course everyone’s different, hope you find something that suits you, and if not hopefully it will only be a few more weeks before you start feeling better. The

Carbs were absolute life. An Iceland shop was heaven.

Ignore any twats that bang on about Kale just eat whatever makes you feel okay. You can do the healthy stuff later.

I literally survived on potato waffles, sausage rolls, anything plain and a bit salty.

At week 13 the switch happened and I was enjoying salads and veg again.

It's difficult to suggest what will work for you because everyone is different. I can manage small meals with veg if they're 'tart', so like tomato, lemon type flavours. I also eat raw sugar snap peas, tomatoes and grapes. I drink a lot of smoothie.

But the bulk of my food is still white carbs. I tend to eat the veg at the time of day I feel best, so sometimes I have 'dinner' mid afternoon, and then white carbs early evening when I feel worse.

If you have a time of day when you don't feel quite so bad, could you flick through recipe books and see what appeals? Or go to the shop and look at the ready meals for ideas? I usually know when I look at something if I'm going to like it!

I hear you on the cooking. We usually cook from scratch but have abandoned this and are buying ready made pasta sauce, prechopped stir fry veg etc.

Every pregnancy is different though. Last preg I loved ice lollies, this time I can't stomach them!

Carbs! I lived on beige food for the first 14 weeks... lots of potato waffles, mash, crumpets, ready salted crisps! Also lemon squash was the only thing I could drink without gagging. Good luck, these early weeks are so tough xx

I’ll be another one to say ‘Carbs’ here. I’m 9+4 although had an early scan yesterday and baby is measuring 10 weeks but have eaten a diet of nothing but carbs for the past month. The only food I fancy (Oddly) is curry. I’ve been eating Haribo to keep nausea at bay. The thought of eating a ginger biscuit is enough to make me gag! Lemon Fanta or San Pellegrino is also brilliant. I’ve been having that or ice cold sparkling water. Absolutely no hot drinks, the smell of coffee repulses me to the core at the moment.

We’ve been using Cook for good quality ready meals atm as I cannot face cooking at the moment (And even when I can, it drains every ounce of energy from me) and they’ve been great. OH also has a super busy job and whilst he is a good cook, isn’t always particularly imaginative.

At the moment, you just need to eat what you fancy and what you can stomach. Don’t worry too much about the nutritional value, anything is better than nothing!

I am also embracing the beige diet! Toast for breakfast, mid morning cheese sandwich, beige lunch (eg pasta and cheese), mid afternoon cheese sandwich, occasional vegetable at dinner time or I have also been craving (mild) curry. Can’t stomach anything sweet weirdly.

Unfortunately the fridge, kitchen sink and bin are like death so I’ve not been cooking, but am at 11 weeks now and starting to see light at the end of the tunnel! Good luck, it’s rough but babies are very nice.

Agree, embrace the beige. I'm usually pretty meticulous about a healthy diet and am vegan but that went out the window for 9 ish weeks. I lived on oven chips, things on toast, mashed potato and crackers. I even ate cheese on toast 3 nights in a row for the first time in 5+ years because it was all I seemed to want 😂 Nutritionally dire but the only stuff that stayed down. 13 weeks onwards it got better.

Plain cream crackers are saving me right now

These are not particularly healthy suggestions but I've been managing on:
-Cheese and crackers (with fruit or veg sticks if possible)

• Omelette
• Toast
• Mashed potato and baked beans
• Plain vegetable risotto with not much seasoning

Beige diet here too!

I'm totally off fruit but what I have been trying to do, if I'm having things like pasta/egg mayonnaise etc. I've been chopping up vegetables very very small and mix them in - that is the only way I've managed to get any fibre in my diet. Also vitamins!

Mostly my diet has been little and consisted of crackers, cheese, plain biscuits (being adventurous ginger!), crisps, potatoes, pasta and sandwiches.

I found soup was good - you can take it in small spoons and let it settle, and I feel like maybe I just tricked my body into thinking it wasn’t really food and therefore not worth being sick over...

My sister could eat nothing but jacobs crackers and mild cheese.

Also, I’m so sorry you feel this way. It is so awful, that constant nausea. I really hope you feel better soon.

Congratulations! You just have to eat what you can when you can. I could only eat cornflakes (had to be the branded ones) with really cold milk on (had to turn the fridge down), pasta twists with cheddar cheese melted on too and krackerwheat crackers which are covered in salt, for about the first 17 weeks of my pregnancy. I could only drink fizzy water as tap water tasted disgusting and the thought of tea made me sick. I also had very bad indigestion. I took a lot of gaviscon (pink bottle) for this. Every time I thought about trying to eat I was physically sick. It was awful. I lost 6kg. It didn’t last the whole pregnancy and after about 24 weeks I started wanting to eat everything I could get my hands on and had cravings for coal and chalk even though I wasn’t anaemic. Baby was born 2 days before due date and was healthy. I really feel for you, hope you feel better soon.

I was extremely limited for over a month and couldn't bare to go near the kitchen to prep food. I just had to strip it right back and have very basic dishes (well not really even dishes!) and try to disguise healthy ingredients.

Here's some ideas from me

Ham sandwich (adding salad and disguising with salad cream)
Honey on toast / crumpet
Chicken burger (adding salad and disguising with Mayo)
Bacon sandwich / BLT
Salt & vinegar crisps
Ginger beer
Fizzy water (with pomegranate juice seems to really help me feel better)
Mango
Mousse
Jelly
Rice pudding
Sausage rolls
Homemade soup (a great way to smuggle veg and can batch cook and freeze 2/3's so you always have a go-to - I have done a few types recently: butternut squash, mushroom, broccoli/cauli cheese, always make sure I add good stock)
Cheese toastie
Cheese and crackers
Beans on toast or jacket
Prawn Mayo jacket with avo
Avo toast
Apricot / blueberry wheat cereal (plus add berries for some health)
Pre-prepared lasagne (then hide broccoli with it or serve with a green salad)
Indian takeaway
Roast dinner (cooked by someone else!)
Chilli (add extra beans/lentils for nutrients)
Macdonalds (did an hour round trip to get one)

I did find I had more of appetite when someone else was cooking the food for me. If I cooked I felt too sick to eat it by time it's ready. So trick was just spending absolute minimal time on prep.

I also started getting a few Gousto meals to cook a week because they have a big range you can chose from you and it's just easy to assemble without requiring too much energy. So you can do or handover to your partner. They are always delicious meals and high quality ingredients.

Potage and Cook.net also do 'homemade' style ready meals. Beautifully made and good ingredients, no nasties. So that could help tide you over.

I also bought a dumping making kit the other day as fancied that and was easy to assemble. Lots of restaurants have meal kits now since Covid.

Hope you feel better soon!
Xx

Definatly beige and carbs. This probably sounds daft but I found it easier to eat whilst watching television as it took my mind off the food. Had to be quick to change channels if food adverts came on though.

Also decaff Yorkshire tea really helped me feel better 😽

Burrata - am addicted to these. Have with avo, basil leaves and tomato, and feels vaguely healthy

Thanks everyone for such amazing suggestions and strategies on how to handle this. I really appreciate it!

Feeling pretty ropey so apologies for the brief response, but wanted to say thanks, and that lots of your ideas will be making it into this week's 'meals'.