Eating Well with a Newborn

There is a picture painted for you when you're pregnant, that the 4th trimester sucks. You'll be tired, not sleeping, not eating well, no time for yourself etc. It's what you come to expect from every blog, book, friend and story you hear/read/see. It doesn't have to be that way! 

Sure depending on what kind of baby you have (colicky, not sleeping great, can't be put down) may play into how it works for you, but taking care of myself is still very important, and since I'm an older first time mom, I've had longer to cement that into my routine, so it's much harder to give it up.

I'd argue when you have a newborn, especially if you're breastfeeding, it's the MOST important time to eat well. Everything you eat is what baby is going to eat so make it nutritious and delicious! How does that work for me?

First, we have a CSA with Spoon Full Farms. What is a CSA? It's Community Supported Agriculture. Meaning, you sign up for a "share" with a local farm and you pay them directly weekly or biweekly and they deliver you fresh produce from their farm! You're supporting small business, local agriculture and it's going to be fresher than anything you get at the grocery store. You can search for a local CSA near you here: Local Harvest. I get an email each week with what's in our share. This helps me shape our meal plan for the week. I want to be sure I use up all our produce so nothing goes to waste. I love old fashioned cook books so I search through mine to find recipes that use the ingredients we're getting. It's important that we have both vegetarian, vegan and meat options throughout the week. Some of my favorite cookbooks:

 

 

From there I write out in my notebook the days of the week, the meals we're having and what book/page number it's on. I then translate those into my shopping list. I organize it into different categories, based on how we move through our local Co-op. Produce, Bulk, Packaged Items, Meat & Dairy, Misc. Planning food based on what we're getting in the CSA often means our shopping list is pretty small. I planned this week and all we needed was a head of cauliflower, steak & chicken.

I did this partially while babe was sleeping and partially when he was awake, in the sling strapped to me. The cooking is a partnership with Rich and I. I prefer cooking when I have a recipe to follow, so often Rich will hang with little bear so I can cook, or if he's nursing or I want to hang on to him, Rich will cook. I try to make sure some meals are REALLY easy, but all of them make enough for left overs. That's how we eat lunch all week!

One service I think is amazing is Eat Your Books. You add your cookbooks to a virtual bookshelf, and it catalogs all the recipes. That way you can search easily through all your book by recipe, ingredient, ethnicity etc! It makes it a lot easier than flipping through pages and pages.