After giving birth, the young mother wants to eat everything that she denied herself for nine long months. It seems: after all, the baby has already been born, you can eat your favorite sweets, enjoy a barbecue, celebrate the birth with a glass of wine ...
But this is far from the case! For proper growth, a newborn needs breastfeeding. And the quality of milk is determined by the food consumed and the lifestyle of the young mother.
The menu for a nursing mother should provide the baby with all the nutrients. Mistakes of a woman’s nutrition during breastfeeding provoke colic, constipation, or vice versa, loose stools, and even allergies in a child. To avoid such troubles, you need to carefully consider the diet. Prohibited products must be excluded.
How to eat a nursing mother who has recently given birth to a baby?
After childbirth, the entire diet, the woman’s menu is aimed at:
- set up the body for proper breastfeeding;
- restore bowel function (often women who give birth suffer from constipation).
You need to eat often - take food five to six times a day. Do not eat foods that can fasten. Of great importance is the drinking regimen.
As the little man grows, the menu for the nursing mother expands. At first, fermented milk products are needed. With their help, the intestines will work, and the lost calcium will also be restored.
In the menu of a nursing mother, the recipes are simple. Kefir, low-fat cottage cheese, a variety of cereals only on the water, certainly boiled vegetables, slightly dried bread, light soup (always without frying), as well as rosehip broth. All this is included in the menu of a nursing mother from the first day. So you need to eat up to two weeks. We offer a sample menu:
Eating | Allowed Products |
Breakfast | Oatmeal (while on the water) - about 200 g, bread or shortbread cookies with butter, tea should be weak |
Snack | A glass of milk yogurt without the addition of dyes or kefir, fermented baked milk; cheese sandwich |
Dinner | Vegetable soup (possible on chicken broth) - 150g, steam cutlet with mashed potatoes, bread, stewed fruit, cooked from dried fruits |
Second snack | Low-fat cottage cheese with a spoon of sour cream, a glass of liquid jelly |
Dinner | Boiled or baked chicken fillet in vegetables, herbal tea or regular tea with the addition of milk. Better unsweetened |
Before bedtime | Cookies with a glass of kefir, fermented baked milk or jam |
When the baby turns two weeks old, the menu for the nursing mother becomes more diverse:
Eating | Allowed Products |
First breakfast | Milk soup, cheese sandwich, berry jam or jam, tea with milk |
Snack | Baked apple with cottage cheese, fermented baked milk or jam, shortbread cookies |
Dinner | Vegetable salad (carrots and cabbage), cabbage soup or borscht - only without frying, a slice of bread casserole with fish and stewed apples |
Second snack | Salad of fruits, toasted bread, juice from fresh apples |
Dinner | Rice with gravy, steam chops, vegetable salad (cucumbers, tomatoes), shortbread cookies, sweet tea |
Before bedtime | Shortbread cookies, weak milk tea |
The menu after giving birth to a nursing mother until the first feeding of the baby is hearty. You need to eat as soon as a feeling of hunger. It is important to pay attention to fluid intake: it is good to drink fruit drinks in between meals, fruit compotes, mineral water and herbal teas to increase lactation.
How to eat mom baby first month
When the baby is born, an important period begins: his digestive system is configured to work independently. The intestines acquire microorganisms, digestive glands work, and contractile functions develop. Breast milk, as the only food for a baby of this age, directly affects these processes.
A huge mistake is made by young mothers, who immediately after the birth of a child sit on a half-starvation diet, wanting to quickly return a slim figure. Their children do not receive the necessary nutrients. Breast milk very quickly ceases to be produced if a woman is starving. Therefore, you can’t eat a lactating diet for weight loss. But overeat - too.
The menu of a nursing mother in the first month of her life should be balanced in a certain way: varied and quite nutritious.
Now the child’s health is very closely connected with the nutrition of his mother. It is during this period that it is important for a woman to strictly control her diet. Later, the selection of products will become a little more diverse.
The main principles of the postpartum diet
Preparing to breastfeed, a woman should consume high-calorie foods. For well-being, providing high-quality nutrition for the baby, the first-month menu for a nursing mother should provide the body with approximately 2,800 calories.
When a nursing woman is malnourished, the amount of breast milk decreases rapidly. Why a child develops a severe allergy.
But overeating will negatively affect mom and baby. This threatens to gain excess weight.
You need to understand that normal nutrition means quality food, not its quantity.
If suddenly there is not enough milk, you should drink tea with milk ten to fifteen minutes before feeding.
It is recommended that you drink water more often, as juices or tea do not replenish enough fluid in the body.
But in the first week after giving birth, you need to drink liquids no more than one liter. The next two weeks, mom can drink kefir, fermented baked milk, weak tea. Due to this, milk stagnation does not form.
Further, it is imperative to maintain a milk diet. Oatmeal, cooked in milk, or low-fat cottage cheese helps increase lactation. A milk-free diet is indicated only in case of acute allergy and lactose intolerance in women.
The menu of a nursing mother the first month after birth consists of simple dishes. You need to eat at least four times a day, adding two snacks between the main meal. It is necessary to withstand drinking regimen.
Dishes should be eaten fresh, not later than three hours after their preparation.
Nutrition of a woman in the first half of the year after childbirth
The child is a month old, and the nutritional requirements of his mother are no longer so strict. During this time, postpartum constipation ceases to bother. And in the menu of a nursing mother, after a month from the birth of the baby, it is allowed to gradually include rice.
It is still important to drink plenty of fluids while increasing milk production.
New products should be consumed in turn and little by little. Be sure to observe the well-being of the baby, give him time to get used to them.
From the first to the third month are allowed: boiled compote from different dried fruits, oatmeal, millet, rice and wheat porridge. Light sour cream, Russian slightly salted cheeses, fresh raw vegetables, diet rabbit meat are added, and beef broth is cooked for soups.
From the third to the sixth month, the list of products is replenished with beets, nuts. It is acceptable to eat lean pork, as well as pepper and thyme (very little). Natural fruit juices enrich the diet.
Nutrition of a woman in the second half of the year after childbirth
After six months of breastfeeding, those foods that the baby does not respond well are excluded.
When a child is healthy, he has no excess weight, normal stools and does not suffer from colic, mom can eat almost everything. Only coffee, alcohol and fast food are prohibited.
From the sixth to ninth month, honey is gradually added to the diet. It is allowed to use small portions of red fish, legumes (beans and peas), and garlic.
After the ninth month to a year, a young mother can add lemons to the menu.
Healthy foods
Through breast milk, the baby receives the nutrients needed for sound development. Therefore, the list of permitted products includes the following:
- fresh herbs, most often dill;
- berries of black currant, gooseberry;
- white fish: cod, perch;
- stewed squash, pumpkin;
- cottage cheese casserole from low-fat cottage cheese with yogurt;
- a variety of cereals;
- stewed and fried cauliflower;
- fruit drinks, compote of rose hips or dried fruits;
- quail eggs;
- pure spring or mineral water;
- unsalted hard cheeses;
- boiled or baked potatoes;
- poultry meat, lean pork, beef;
- steam cutlets;
- Rye bread.
The menu of a nursing mother for months can be made based on the list of products allowed for a given period.
What is forbidden while breastfeeding
During the entire time of breastfeeding, you can not use:
- Alcohol. Alcohol 100% gets into the baby's milk. The liver of the baby is still poorly developed, therefore it is unable to neutralize the poison. Alcohol gets into the baby’s brain, central nervous system, affects the kidneys, heart, poisons the gastrointestinal tract, causing irreparable damage.
- Baking, condensed milk, colored candies with flavorings, soda type "Cola" or "Fanta".
- Coffee and milkshakes.
- Frozen convenience foods, all canned food, spicy marinades.
- Crackers, salted chips and nuts (even a little).
- Spices that change the taste of milk: onions, garlic, horseradish, mustard.
- Lard, sausages, fatty meat.
- Fermented as well as hot cheeses.
- Smoked, dried, salted, steamed fish.
- All exotic fruits except bananas.
- Radish and radish (cause colic in a child).
You can eat, but little by little
After giving birth, there is no need to completely refuse chocolate. Yet this is a healthy product. When using a small amount, it restores strength, struggles with postpartum depression. It is only necessary to make sure that the baby is not allergic.
Gently introduce chicken eggs into the menu. Eat no more than three to four pieces during the week.
Caution should be taken with whole milk. With it it is useful to drink tea, cook porridge. You can’t drink with glasses! Lactose will provoke an allergy to the baby.
Doctor's recommendations
Doctors say that high-quality nutrition of the mother forms the baby’s immune defense, protects against colds. The menu of a nursing mother in the first month should exclude products that cause a child’s intestinal upset, severe allergies, and colic.
As nutritional supplements, doctors advise eating bran. They will not cause an allergic reaction in the child and are very useful.
The diet should be made up of good fresh foods. No artificial additives.
Useful for drinking: mineral water without gas, weak black tea, berry fruit drinks.
Intestinal colic in infants. What to eat mom?
Intestinal gassing causes a stomachache in the baby. These are colic. In this case, from the mother’s menu are excluded:
- raw vegetables or fruits;
- freshly baked bread;
- the eggs.
The entire first month of the nursing menu consists of fermented milk products, cereals, boiled vegetables, diet poultry, and rabbit.
In the second month, they start adding new products one spoonful. At the same time, watching how the body reacts to the baby. If everything is in order, gradually the portion becomes larger.
To soothe childhood colic, mom can drink dill water - brew seeds with dill grass. Infusion is drunk up to three glasses per day.
By three to four months the baby colic most often pass.
Caution: Allergy
A hypoallergenic diet excludes foods that cause allergies. When observing changes in the children's body, you should try to identify the product that causes allergies.
It is required to exclude from the menu for a nursing mother:
- all types of citrus fruits;
- nuts
- fruits - exotic;
- orange vegetables or red berries;
- natural honey.
A healthy, balanced postpartum menu will help restore strength to a woman, strengthen the baby's immunity. The right way of life will help a young mother to be cheerful, pay much attention to raising a child, enjoy the growth and development of her baby.