Diet After Birth

[Dansolo92]

I am currently 32 weeks pregnant but I have been looking into what I want to be eating after I give birth. I have gestational diabetes so my diet right now is pretty strict but I plan on breastfeeding so want to plan ahead and research what foods I should be eating to benefit my baby boy. With my last baby I fell into the trap of eating rubbish just for the quickness and ended up gaining weight so do not want to do that again. My biggest problem is that I skip meals then because I am so hungry I eat a lot at once and not good meals.

Ideally I would like to replace a meal a day with a meal replacement shake. I have done some research in to this and it says as long as it is only 1 per day then it's fine when breastfeeding. Has anybody else done this or had any experience with this? It does say to add fruit and yoghurt to the shake on some websites but not all.

Any advice on meal replacement would be appreciated thank you 🙂

[Seb9]

I had gestational diabetes and was really good with my diet. After baby it all went a bit wrong and I ended up living on chocolate hobnobs 🙈

I've now started back at slimming World which I find great, no swapping of food for shakes and no really calorie counting.

I'm not planning on losing the weight too fast but have lost 10lbs since January.

They have a plan designed especially for breastfeeding mothers and I've found it quite easy to stick to as well as being able to have a few treats when it having coffee with mum friends and still lose weight.

I think there's an online membership of you can't get to groups, but if you can go to groups they're very baby friendly. There's about 5 other mums in my group with babies.

Thees lots of free foods you can eat so I have tried to fill up the fridge with these so I can pick as well as have meals. I have boiled eggs, ham, celery, chicken, carrots etc. Then you have healthy choices for fibre and calcium. You can have 5 portions of these. I normal have 3 portions of cheese and 2 of ryevita and alpen bars.

Best of luck with whatever option you go with

[Dansolo92 in reply to Seb9]

I was the same after my last baby. I was over a stone lighter after giving birth but then I fell for eating chocolate brioche every morning for breakfast and for chocolate biscuits and tea...whoops! But I don't want to fall into that again so trying to plan ahead. I will look into slimming world even if it is just with online support so thank you for the advice 😁 x

[Hidden]

I've been doing slimfast but only 1 shake a day the 2 calories control meals for lunch and dinner (230 for lunch and 600 for dinner) 3 x 100 calorie snacks I've lost 3 stone and currently maintaining at my goal I do want another stone off but happy to be at this weight.

[Dansolo92 in reply to Hidden]

Well done 😁. It takes a lot of effort to diet doesn't it. Did you breastfeed while having the shakes? Xx

[Hidden in reply to Dansolo92]

Sorry I haven’t had a baby recently we’ve been trying for years with multiple mc’s. I’m not sure with breastfeeding not really suppose to diet I don’t think could affect your milk but could ask a dr or health visitor.

[Dansolo92 in reply to Hidden]

Oh I'm really sorry to hear that. I can't even begin to imagine what you have been through.

I will talk to my health visitor when she comes next month and thank you for the advice.

I hope all goes well for you xx

[Claireeeeeeeeeeeee]

I think you have to be really careful about dieting when breastfeeding, to make sure it doesn't affect your supply. I would say the way I got round skipping meals and eating loads of snacks was that I bulk cooked before and separated it into meals. When ever it was a meal time I could just put it in the microwave and have something healthy and nutritious with minimal effort.

[Dansolo92 in reply to Claireeeeeeeeeeeee]

Thank you for your reply. After looking online for hours I know its important not to diet but to eat right. My plan is to make my meals the day before when I'm making our evening meal so sort of like what you've said. Instead of a meal replacement shake I've found loads of recipes for 'boobie smoothies' so basically a smoothie that helps your milk production that also fills you up for breakfast which is the meal I would probably have skipped to be fair and I'm also getting nutrients for baby at the same time xx