When I was preparing for postpartum I made some muffins and a couple meals. I thought that would be all we’d need in those early days. I was soooo wrong! There are so many ways to support yourself during the postpartum period and a meal plan for postpartum is one of them.
Meal planning is so helpful during the newborn days when you’re sleep deprived, trying to find your rhythm, recovering from birth and so much more. It’s also a great tool to create healthier meals and stay on a budget. I wanted to outline a few different ways you can meal plan prior to your baby arriving. In another journal post I will show meal planning you can use after the baby arrives to make meals easily.
Online Recipe Planning
In early pregnancy as you are slowly starting to prepare for the arrival of your baby I think it’s a good idea to start saving healthy, nutritious postpartum meals. Create a pinterest board or use a meal planning app. This way you can find recipes that work for your family and when you have time slowly start to fill your freezer. A meal plan for postpartum starts before the third trimester so you have the energy!
Done For You Meal Plan
If you’re not into prepping meals before the baby arrives, I would recommend signing up for a service that provides the meals for you. It’s a good idea to try out different companies to see which one you like in terms of food, but also how long it takes to prepare the meal. For me personally some of the meal kits take just as long to cook and cost a lot more. The one we liked the most was Fresh Prep. I found the recipes to be tasty and usually there was enough for 2 meals.
Meal Delivery
Don’t want to cook? That’s perfectly ok. Find a service in your area that delivers fully prepared meals. It’s very convenient and takes the worry of food prep off your to do list. I honestly wished I had ordered more premade meals. If you don’t want to use an expensive service check out local grocery stores that do prepared dinners, we really love the ones at Costco. Plus they’re big enough for multiple meals.
Batch Prepare Meals to Freeze
As you’re cooking meals before the baby arrives start doubling recipes. Then freeze the leftovers to use in postpartum. This is an easy way to fill your freezer and have many different types of meals available to you.
As you start to think about the best way to prepare food before the baby arrives, consider the tools that would be good to help with batch prepping.
- Food storage – if you have a small freezer make sure to purchase a food storage system that easily stacks so you can efficiently use the space.
- Meal Planning App – This can help you stay organized, save recipes, and make notes.
- Meal Planning Journal – If you like to use a pen and paper write it all down. I also found having a list of meals that are in the freezer helpful. Then you check them off once you take them out.
- Labels – In early postpartum it might be hard to remember what everything is in your fridge or freezer. Make sure to label freezer meals as well as meals in the fridge so you know when to eat everything.
If I were to do it over again I think I would choose a combination of meal delivery and freezer meals, but for three months!! I am not kidding. The sleep deprivation with twins was intense. I wouldn’t be cooking the next time around! I’d be making sure my meal plan for postpartum was supporting me and making sure I had enough meals and snacks so I wouldn’t have to cook for a while. Plus knowing the meals I was having were nutritious, helping my body to heal and recover in postpartum.
