Post Punk Kitchen Forum

So I'm counting down the days until I'm holding my newborn in my arms, and while I've got my freezer surprisingly well stocked with food for after s/he's born, I'm blanking on good snack ideas to have on hand for all those marathon nursing sessions. I'll have a basket of useful/important things within arm's reach including burp cloths, diapers/wipes, water, etc, and I want to load it with snacks too.

So far I've got:
-apples/bananas (one-handed fruits!)
-muffins
-nuts
-trail mix
-homemade energy bars (haven't made any, just found some recipes tonight that I will hopefully make tomorrow!)
-raw almond-pineapple-date balls

What else do you think would be good? Any favourites?

When I bf my daughter I really just want drinks on hand and not food so much. I would make sure you have water/tea/juice close by. Your list seems great and you may not need tons more snacks nearby because in the beginning it doesn't seem like they nurse that long (or at least mine didn't).

I had the same experience as MM3 - L nursed for about 5 mins at a time, so I never needed to nurse and eat at the same time, but I was soooooooo thirsty. But I did appreciate the Builder power bars I kept in my room for late night snacking.

Your snacks sound perfect - I'd just do a mix of savory (pretzels) along with the sweet.

In the beginning I had kind of the opposite experience I felt like I did nothing but nurse Lorelei, nonstop, all day... until I died.

Oh my god! Five minutes at a time? I was glued to the couch. I spent so much time sitting and nursing my body ached, so having snack sounds perfect to me. If you are going to make homemade stuff, I suggest lactation cookies. They are really yummy oatmeal cookies and I can't say whether they do any good, but I loved eating them in the beginning. Easy to veganize.

http://www.ehow.com/how_5468876_make-la ... okies.html

Haha, yes! That! By the end of the first week, I was also glued to the couch. LittleBodhi nursed SO much! Thanks for the link to the lactation cookies.

Yup. Sometimes I still feel this way.

With the Magician, I was so incredibly deathly thirsty whenever he nursed as a newborn. It's actually a hormone thing that happens to some people as a side effect of letdowns... Anyway, since I was so thirsty, food was abhorrent to me. So in the first few days, I went through a ton of juice (not something we normally have on hand) while nursing. Might be worth getting a bottle of something you like just so you don't have to go to the store after the baby's born!

With E, it never occurred to me to eat OR drink while nursing him. Totally different experience.

Oh, something helpful besides my last non helpful post.

I drank lots of water but the first week or two after I had Grey I had no appetite and had to choke food down. Then I had a lovely hormone thing that every time he latched in I would get nauseous, so again, I didn't care about snacks. I did, however, have a crazy sweet tooth and wanted to eat nothing but cookies when he wasn't nursing! I think I have eaten more cookies in the last year than the rest of the years I have been alive combined...and I still have managed to lose 70 pounds.

I just thought of something! Maybe get some popsicles or freeze some juice. The first few days with my kids I've always wanted popsicles to help with the dehydrated/parched feeling.

At first I was starving, just unbelievably hungry. I at a lot of microwave quesadillas - corn tortillas, daiya cheese, tofurky slices, microwaved for 30 seconds. That helped me get through the day. I also was gaining weight! Eventually my appetite cooled down. Probably my favorite thing to munch on now is fruit or carrots and hummus.

Mmm, popsicles sound like a good idea. I also want to make those beautiful chocolate-covered strawberry creamsicles I saw in Food Porn. Microwave quesadillas - good call, I wouldn't have thought of that. Thanks!

I'm so surprised that some of you weren't hungry at all! I was starving last time, and I expect I will be this time too, but of course, you can never tell until it happens.

I'm still amazed at how hungry I was in the beginning! Much hungrier than during pregnancy. Once I ate over 1000 calories of junk food in about 1/2 an hour and I still could have eaten a donut after that! I can't imagine being that hungry now, although I still have a pretty good appetite, but with mostly healthier foods.

water in my camelbak and clifs builder bars. Also bananas like you said. I like bananas but don't eat them much. In the first few weeks of stuck not being able to move nursing I ate so many bananas.

Muffins. I would make a batch and freeze them and pop one in the microwave on defrost for 40-60 seconds. I was doing that anyway when I was pregnant for quick food in the morning for nausea.

I ate really inconvenient foods when nursing and got food all over Lorelei and my Boppy on a regular basis. That continued while babywearing when we went out and she would fall asleep in it.

Ha, yeah the past few days Scarlett has seriously been nursing for 45 minutes of every hour, round the clock. She falls asleep a lot but wakes up and gets upset if I try to move her. Apparently the only place she wants to sleep is on my bare nipples. Last night I managed to eat a bowl of noodle soup with one hand, but that is probably the least convenient thing to eat while nursing. My partner has been making me a lot of sandwiches, which can be pretty easy to eat, and I feel better eating an actual meal than snacking on muffins all day (although I love muffins and wouldn't really have a problem eating them all day..).

Echoing everyone on having water nearby, always. Water is the best. But I also had the world's biggest sweet tooth for months. Blueberry muffins, Jokerz bars, Sticky Fingers little devils (they have a cookbook!)...though really in the beginning at 4am cereal worked just fine.

I had (still do sometimes) that "nauseous while nursing" thing too. Eating something beforehand, if I could remember, helps though. One of my favorites are these things called Nakd bars: all raw with fruit and nuts. Sounds dull, but they are so freaking good. Ditto to all those saying to have water nearby. I drink so much now, but those first few weeks before the nursing strike started, I was downing 4+ liters of fluid/day. I never been so thirsty in my life.