Breastfeeding Diet:
What to Eat?

What You Should Eat and Have in Your Breastfeeding Diet

Work fiber into your diet, something that will help you milk supply as well as keep you and your baby regular. Choose whole wheat over white bread and flour and choose brown rice over white rice. Some woman find that brown rice causes them to become engorged, while others find that it does increase their milk supply but their baby is able to drink enough that it doesn't cause them discomfort or pain. Do not eat excessive amounts of sugar because it is filling but not nutritional, excessive amounts of salt or trans fats is not good either.

Try and reduce the amount of meat that you are eating, there are many plant sources of protein that you can use to incorporate in your meals to provide you protein. Use nuts and seeds in the dishes that you are eating for a source of protein. By adding sesame seeds to your dishes you'll add nutrition and good taste. Hauled sunflower seeds are great over a salad, or even morning cereal or oatmeal. As long as no one in your household is allergic to nuts, or is under the age of three, you can grind them up to use in waffles, pancakes, bread and other dishes with ease. Eating them raw is best.

Make sure that your quick snacks don't make you sacrifice nutrition. Fresh fruit and vegetables that are prewashed are examples of a good quick snack. On hotter days yogurt can be a good snack as well as frozen berries. Although they make for a quick and tasty snack dried fruit should not be eaten in excessive amounts, because they are high in natural sugars, the same goes for chips and crackers as they are often highly processed and offer little nutrition.

While you are breastfeeding it is important to stay hydrated, but not with lots of tea, coffee, soda pops or other caffeinated drinks or with sugary drinks. Water and unsweetened juice is the best beverage to have on hand and drink when you are breastfeeding. Get in the habit of drinking a cup of water every time you sit down to nurse, that way you will be sure to stay hydrated.

In addition to having a good amount of healthy fluids, plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables and whole grains, calcium is another thing that you will want to make sure that you eat. If you are allergic to milk or do not care for it, you shouldn't despair as there are many sources that you can get calcium from. Yogurt, cheese, cottage cheese often do not affect people with a mild milk allergy. Blackstrap molasses and calcium enriched tofu are good sources of calcium as are the vegetables bok choy, broccoli, collards and kale as are sesame seeds, Brazil nuts and almonds.

Again don't forget to keep taking your prenatal vitamins while you are nursing, keeping in mind that they are only supplements and that a well balanced diet full of a variety of foods and nutrition is still very important. Breastfeeding Food Shopping List offers information and tips for shopping while you are breastfeeding and Dieting and Exercising While Breastfeeding can offer information on that topic.