PLEASE HELP: Healthy meal options for a new mom with a baby that won’t sit anywhere for long

I second the crockpot substation. It’s quick to get started and makes plenty of food so there’s lots of leftovers that are easy to reheat.

For snacks my go-tos are string cheese, hard boiled eggs, carrot sticks, celery sticks, apple, or bananas.

Usually, I just make a sandwich for lunch which is pretty quick and simple. Sometimes I just grab a protein bar.

Definitely look at the crock pot option. Also, can you baby-wear? Put her in a sling or snugli to free up your hands, if you can. I remember these days! Hang in there, they'll pass in the blink of an eye. The days are long, but the years are short.

I ate a lot of sandwiches and mini naan pizzas when I was on maternity leave, plus raw veggies dipped in ranch and some chips or something. For snacks I ate apples, bananas, belvita soft baked oatmeal biscuits, fiber one brownies, muffins (already made from the grocery store). I was able to make a mad dash to the kitchen to prepare my lunches while LO was sleeping or otherwise content (which never lasted for very long lol)

For dinners I can't really help because my husband always held the baby while I made dinner, so just our usual things. Or we would get take-out which we don't really care for. In the very early days when I couldn't really cook, we ate a lot of frozen stuff. We went to Sams club and they have a section of prepared bbq meats and scalloped potatoes and things like that. We bought a bunch of that type of stuff and put it in our freezer before I had the baby.

When I was on maternity leave, before my husband left in the morning, I would make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and package them in halves in places where I would tend to get 'stuck' during the day. I would leave one or 2 in the stroller with a banana or apple, one or two in the places where I was typically nursing and those would be my emergency food. Even now that our kids are much older, we prepare most of our food for the week on the weekend. Then you can just reheat what you need for a meal.

I used to get veggie trays, tubs of hummus, pre-sliced cheese, cups of yogurt, and those pre-boiled/peeled egg packets from Costco and just ran drive-bys on the fridge every time I was fixing another bottle for the baby. If my calories were coming in too low, I'd also have a few boxes of crackers around to give myself a boost to maintain milk production, etc. Dinners were generally starch/veg by rice-cooker and protein by freezer aisle/oven. I still get nostalgic eating those individually frozen chicken cordon bleu things.

My snack go to is the "Apple Pie Smoothie"
1 apple, 1 banana, 1 cup of Greek yogurt ,10 almonds or almond milk and a pinch of cinnamon. Will keep you full and give you the good nutrients you need.

You have got some suggestions above. Mine would not be very different. But, every chance you have to cook or prep food, try to plan for doubles or more. This way at the end of a meal you can pop the leftovers in the freezer of fridge and have a day here and there where you do no cooking at all. Just reheating. Great for the super fussy days.

And, remember you don’t have to have “traditional” lunch and supper meals. Oatmeal and fruit or eggs and a salad are perfectly acceptable.