Snacks for hospital bag

Oishii

Last time I gave birth, the food in hospital was dire: tiny portions, little fibre and little protein (at least for me, as a vegetarian). On the up side, as part of the National Health Service, it was free. I supplemented it with chocolate and dried apricots then, but I will be a little more ambitious this time round.

Ideas so far:

Cereal bars: 9 bars (made of seeds) and Nakd bars (raw food bars)
Tuna: mini tins that you can get with beans an tuna mixed in
Bananas
Clementines
Nuts

I hope I won't be in long, but I hate the idea of ending up with another C section and malnourished whilst healing and breast feeding.

What are you, or would you be, planning on taking?

Pepper2185

I took a bag of homemade lactation cookies. Yum!

kcasey155

I always go to the supermarket on the way to the delivery ward! I agree NHS food is awful for us vegetarians. I always pack a small bottle of squash to go with the jugs of 'warm' water and as much food as I know won't spoil in the uncomfortable heat of the post delivery wards. I'm always ravenous after birth and always seem to have just missed the last meal served or it's the middle of the night.

I always take a bunch of bananas, cereal bars and sweets!

Perhaps pack some dried fruit - dates, prunes or figs, etc. (helps makes those first couple of bowel movements a tad easier aswell!)
Crisps, tortilla chips, rice cakes, cream crackers or snack a jacks for a savoury snack maybe.

I won't be worrying about calorie content for the first few weeks I doubt.

You may want to check whether your 'allowed' to take products containing nuts. Often places with young children ban nut products from entering their doors. (Not that the babies will be eating them but nuts are so frowned up these days).

Good luck!

Rubyayn

I also plan on making lactation cookies and bringing an assortment of snacks. I will stock up at Whole Foods as close to delivery as I can for some of the healthier organic "convenience" foods. I also plan on sending my hubby out to a local vegan eatery for some of my meals. When I had my daughter I didn't eat any of the hospital food. It was horrible!!

RBXChas

Here in the US, the food is horrible, too. I'm not a vegetarian/vegan, and I found the choices pretty sad. It's just not very healthy. Lots of fried stuff, and the "healthy" food is not the best (as in, fruit that's of questionable freshness). Plus they seem to bring your food at the worst time so that you can't eat it right away, or they're back to take it away before you've even had a chance to touch it. They don't make it very easy for new moms who might only have one hand available to eat with!

The only food that I found to be reliably good was bananas. The maternity ward always seemed to have juice, too, but that's a lot of sugar. My sister lives nearby, and she knows firsthand that snacks are essential, so she stopped and picked me up a bunch of stuff. It's good because I was ravenous, so I always had the option of eating something whenever I was available to.

The snacks she brought weren't super, super healthy (I mean, I didn't expect her to drive across town to go to Whole Foods), but they were pretty good. Popcorn, granola bars, and shelf-stable fruit (apples, pears, etc.) were the big things that I remember. Otherwise, when my husband was headed in, he would text me to see if I wanted him to pick up anything, since there were a few fast food places surrounding the hospital. I know that's not the best, but I could get a grilled chicken sandwich or something and have him hold the baby when he arrived so that I could eat.

ETA that this time I will also be bringing lactation cookies