Eating for Breastfeeding

When you are in your third trimester, your baby will be old enough to start tasting the food which you eat. When you give birth and are breast feeding, your baby tastes the food which you eat as it comes out in the milk. This is why you have to be very careful what you eat while you are breastfeeding.  

If you are nursing your baby, you should be producing between 23 and 27 ounces of milk every day. In order for you to do this, you need to increase your calorie intake by about 500 calories more every day. Along with the calorie increase, you also have to make sure that you increase your water intake to at least 2 ? to 3 quarts of water per day. This should not be a problem because you will more than likely find that you are thirsty after you have fed your baby because the water which you drink goes straight to the milk production. You should try not to drink more than 3 quarts of water every day because anything more than this could reduce the amount of milk you produce.

You calories should increase to 2500 a day if you are planning on breastfeeding for over three months.  However, you should make sure that these extra calories do not come from junk food as they offer no nutritional value at all, to you or your baby. You should certainly eat more protein, eating one gram of protein for every pound that you weigh.  You should look to adapt the six meals a day into your daily routing. Some people incorporate this into their life while they are pregnant, but if you haven¡¦t you should certainly consider it while you are breastfeeding. You should have breakfast, a midday snack, lunch, an afternoon snack, dinner and a night time snack. This is because your body is making milk all day and you need to keep your energy levels up.

There are certain foods you should avoid while breastfeeding because everything you eat passes straight through to the baby¡¥s milk. Chocolate is often blamed for colic and can give your baby an upset stomach and greasy and spicy foods are also not good for the baby. You should certainly wait until you baby has stopped nursing before you take a trip to McDonalds. 

Other foods to consider avoiding while you are breastfeeding are garlic and onions.  These are both strong flavors and can actually flavor the breast milk itself. You might find that your baby will not feed if the milk is overpowered by garlic. Also, remember that it takes a little while for the food which you eat to make its way into your breast milk so there could be some kind of delayed reaction.

As when you¡¦re pregnant, you should also stay away from caffeine when you are nursing. You do not want to give your baby too much caffeine otherwise he could get sick. Remember to keep caffeine down to a minimum.

 
Eating for Breastfeeding - Google News
Eating for Breastfeeding - Google News

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