Jonathan Steedman (00:01.9)

Welcome back to the Bite Me Nutrition podcast. I haven't said that for a while, but it's been a while. What was supposed to be a two week break turned into like a three month break. So I'm sorry about that. Moved house, bunch of stuff happens. But anyway, we're here. I'm really excited to talk to you about nutrition for breastfeeding. First and foremost, want to acknowledge the elephant in the room. I'm a man who's going to be talking to you about breastfeeding. If you have a problem with that, please just turn this off.

 

You can get angry at me if you want, just like if I had an issue with my prostate, sorry to jump straight into that, and I went to the doctor and the doctor was female, I wouldn't care because I would assume she's very knowledgeable on the topic and the science and is able to communicate that to me. She doesn't need a prostate to be an expert in all of those other things. Just like I don't need to be able to breastfeed to be able to understand the science and the evidence behind breastfeeding. If it helps, I do have two children that were breastfed, not by me, but I was...

 

very closely and as closely involved as you can be. And this is also as well last caveat, not a podcast designed to say that breastfeeding is better. Fed is best. But I assume if you're here, it's because you are either breastfeeding or trying to breastfeed. So that's why we're gonna talk about that today. The reason we need to talk about it is some of the information that I have seen online that I've been asked about and that my...

 

that older clients not like age as in clients I used to see have been given has been horrible. And it's put them in a really difficult spot, particularly after they finished breastfeeding. I say this with love, but most midwife nutrition advice sucks. They seem to have this idea that milk supply is directly related to how much you eat. So if your supply is low, you need to eat more. And that's actually fairly rarely the case. Of course, you need to be eating enough.

 

I'm not disputing that at all, but I've had way too many clients stack on a ton of unwanted weight during their breastfeeding window because they're frantically trying to eat more to fuel that supply. When in reality, breastfeeding requires an extra three to 400 calories a day. So if we put that in context, that's two full snacks or a light, know, smallish meal. That's how much extra you need to eat on top of your normal diet. So you do need to eat a bit more, but you don't need to eat

 

Jonathan Steedman (02:25.954)

probably the levels that you're being encouraged to eat. So please don't feel attacked. I'm not telling you to starve yourself. I'm saying eating a couple of, eating three main meals a day, a couple of snacks a day, that's a good baseline. And then if you're breastfeeding, you're probably gonna want another couple of snacks or another small meal in there somewhere. That being said, I know that breastfeeding hunger is real. I don't think it's overly due to the actual breastfeeding itself. I think it's.

 

how the logistics of breastfeeding affect your diet. And what I mean by that is I know having that little barnacle on you makes it really, hard to eat regularly because you kind of behold them to their schedule, right? So you're probably not eating your meals at regular intervals. I also know that having that little barnacle stuck on you makes it much harder to eat what you would typically eat. You generally only got one arm, right? Which limits what you can eat. And so I think those two things stack together where you're not eating regularly enough. And when you do eat,

 

you're just eating snacky stuff, stuff that you can grab hand to mouth, right? And so unfortunately, not eating regularly enough and then not eating balanced big enough things, things rich in protein, veggies, carbohydrates, healthy fats, those things, like not all of those things is going to make you hungrier. And that's what's happening. And then lay it on top of all of that, unless you're one of the rare breed.

 

most people who are breastfeeding are also sleep deprived. They often go hand in hand for understandable reasons. And we know that sleep deprivation significantly increases your hunger, right? It disrupts your appetite regardless of breastfeeding. And so if you're not eating regularly, you're not eating balanced meals and you're sleep deprived, yeah, you're going to be hungrier. So what I really need you to focus on is eating regularly. And I would strongly recommend a watch or a phone.

 

alarm system. Don't rely on you, you will forget you've got too much else on your plate. No pun intended. So have an external reminder to eat all of your meals and all of your snacks. So you should have at least five, if not six, seven alarms set throughout the day. All right, that's step one. Step two is as much as you can when the baby naps. If you do have a 30 minute window or a 60 minute window, try and prep some stuff that you can eat with one hand, I think like

 

Jonathan Steedman (04:45.506)

Things like quiches, make sure you've got good muesli bars, make sure that you've got sandwiches or wraps. All of these things, even the yogurt pouches, all of those one-handed snacks, make sure that you're well stocked so when that alarm goes off, you're not going, okay, I need to eat. I guess I'm gonna go and forage and try and make something. You already have something ready to go. Microwave meals, like the pre-made ones, amazing. Throw them in the microwave for 10 minutes and quickly eat that. So all of those things.

 

anything you can do to get you back to eating regularly and eating balanced is key. And then like I said as well, yeah, you are going to need to eat a little bit more often. Or you're going to need to eat bigger meals and snacks than you normally would because that breastfeeding does require that little bump of three to 400 extra calories, not 1500,000 extra calories like lots of midwives and other professionals sometimes lead you to believe because the thing is

 

You actually have to be eating very little for that to be the thing that is impacting your milk supply. Now I'm not an expert, so I'm not going to give you, I'll very quickly touch on some things, but like if you're struggling with milk supply, please seek professional help. But things that are much more important than how much you're eating are things like hydration, key, really, really critical to stay on top of that, that fluid intake. Obviously those needs significantly increase. Sleep, I know, ha ha ha.

 

Just do what you can, do the best you can. If you're able to, hopefully you've got a partner or family that can, maybe they can take Bob out for a couple of hours so you can have a nap and try and catch up on some sleep where you can. Any little way you can claw some of that back is gonna be really helpful. Skin on skin contact is huge, particularly as they're younger. And then of course the cluster feeding slash feeding on demand, particularly at end of the day, all that rhythm and that routine really builds the supply for you. So I guess what I'm saying is, those are quick tips, but.

 

absolutely go elsewhere for more in-depth milk supply tips, but for actual nutrition for breastfeeding, really it's your standard healthy eating advice. It's eating regularly, it's eating balanced, it's 15 to 20 percent more than you probably have been eating, which probably comes somewhere in the three to four hundred calorie range. And if you're doing those things, you're doing all the right things nutritionally to support that breast milk supply without

 

Jonathan Steedman (07:08.384)

massively exceeding your food requirements, which is going to result in fat gain. And if that's what your goal is, and that's so fine, but for I know a lot of the people I've worked with, their goal is not fat gain. So that's how you can mitigate that without impacting your supply. I did not write this down at all, but I guess it's just popped in my head. Someone might ask, can I lose weight while breastfeeding? You absolutely can. Because like I said, it's what you're eating, the amount you're eating has a-

 

very minor impact on your milk supply. And so look, if you're really struggling with supply, I probably wouldn't start trying to lose weight. And of course, if Bob is a really difficult baby, or you've got Bob and a bunch of other kids, or even just one other kid, if you don't have a ton of family or partner support, then yeah, maybe breastfeeding with a new Bob trying to lose weight, not a good combo. But just biologically, yeah, it is safe to lose a little bit of weight whilst you're breastfeeding.

 

Just be mindful of, is it smart though? Is my life set up to support that? Okay, that's all. All right, we're back. We're back regularly. I'm really excited. I hope this was helpful. If you've got a friend who's breastfeeding, I would love for you to send it that way. I hope it can help them and maybe just take some of the pressure off and give them a little bit more clarity. Otherwise, rock and roll. I'll see you next time.