28 Breastfeeding Snacks for When You're Absolutely Starving
I was not prepared for the hunger. Nobody warns you that you can eat a full dinner at seven and be standing in front of the fridge at half past nine feeling like you haven't eaten all day, and then again at two in the morning, and then again before the sun comes up. It felt greedy at first, until I realised my body was doing something that costs an enormous amount of energy and was simply asking for what it needed.
​
Australia's Healthdirect puts the extra energy a fully breastfeeding woman needs at around 480 calories a day, and the CDC lands in a similar place at roughly three to four hundred extra calories, with the caveat that everybody is different. That figure isn't something to track or hit, and I'd rather you never counted anything. It's here because it explains why you feel the way you do, and because the answer to that feeling is more food rather than more willpower.
​
What follows is twenty-eight of them: what I actually eat, what I keep beside the bed, and what's worth buying when there's no chance of cooking.
How to build a snack that actually keeps you full
The reason a piece of fruit leaves you hungry twenty minutes later is that it's mostly one thing. What fills you is a combination, and the easiest way to think about it is to pick two or three from this list rather than one.
​
Something with protein - Greek yoghurt, eggs, cheese, hummus, nuts, nut butter, tinned tuna, leftover chicken
​
Something with carbohydrate - fruit, oats, wholegrain crackers, toast, pita, cereal
​
Something you actually enjoy - dark chocolate, avocado, dried fruit, a good dip
​
A banana is a snack. A banana with peanut butter is the thing that gets you through a long feed and into lunchtime, and that's the whole difference in a sentence.
​
Official guidance from the NHS and others is that there's no special breastfeeding diet to follow, just a varied one, so please don't let anyone convince you that you need particular foods to do this properly.
Sixteen one-handed breastfeeding snacks
This is the section I wish someone had written for me. When you're pinned under a baby who has finally settled, you need something you can eat with one hand and without dropping crumbs on their head.
​
No prep at all
-
Banana
-
Mandarin
-
Wholegrain crackers
-
Protein or oat bar
-
Cheese stick
-
Yoghurt pouch
-
Dried fruit and nuts
​
About two minutes
-
Apple slices with nut butter
-
Peanut butter on toast
-
Cheese and wholegrain crackers
-
Hummus and pita
-
Hard-boiled egg with crackers
-
Turkey or chicken and cheese roll-ups
​
Made ahead
-
Overnight oats
-
Mini frittatas
-
No-bake oat balls
The Pink Reset
Fourteen days of small, doable things, starting with eating properly when there's no time to cook. One short email each morning. Free.
​Five more you can just buy
Some weeks nothing gets made, and there's no shame in a trolley full of things that need no preparation whatsoever. Alongside the yoghurt, cheese, hummus, crackers and fruit already on the list, these five are worth adding to the shop.
​
-
Roasted chickpeas
-
Tinned tuna or salmon with crackers
-
Ready-made protein drinks
-
Individual nut butter sachets
-
Ready-popped popcorn
​
If you do one shop with all of this in mind, you've solved a fortnight of two o'clock hunger without cooking anything.
Snacks for the middle of the night
Night feeds are their own problem, because the last thing you're going to do at 2am is trek to the kitchen. A small stash within arm's reach of wherever you feed changes those hours completely.
​
Keep permanently beside the bed - bars, trail mix, nuts, dried fruit, wholegrain crackers, nut butter sachets, and a large water bottle you fill before you go to sleep.
​
Worth a small cooler bag if you want something more substantial - yoghurt, cheese, cut fruit, overnight oats, a made-up sandwich or wrap.
​
The thing that makes this work is restocking it once a day at a time that suits you, rather than discovering it's empty when you're already starving and half asleep.
Four you can freeze
Making a double batch of something once a fortnight is a small amount of effort that pays you back for weeks.
​
-
Oat muffins
-
Breakfast burritos
-
Banana bread, cut into portions
-
Oat bars
​
Freeze them individually rather than in one block, and keep them in a container labelled for you. It sounds like a small thing, but a bag with your name on it is the difference between a snack you can grab and a snack you have to think about.
Three that are dairy-free
Most breastfeeding women don't need to avoid dairy, and the CDC is clear that there's no general list of foods to cut out. This is for you if you're dairy-free by choice, or if you've been advised to try removing it for a specific reason.
​
The tricky part is that yoghurt and cheese are doing a lot of the heavy lifting in a normal snack list, so the replacements need to be genuinely filling. Alongside the hummus, eggs, trail mix, roasted chickpeas and tinned fish already here, these three fill the gap.
​​
-
Coconut or soy yoghurt with granola
-
Avocado on toast
-
A smoothie made with a fortified milk alternative
Do lactation snacks actually increase your supply?
Honestly, probably not, and I'd rather tell you that than sell you a cookie.
​
Plenty of mothers swear by oats, brewer's yeast, flaxseed and lactation cookies, and you'll find those stories everywhere. The Australian Breastfeeding Association's position is that there's very little scientific evidence that these foods increase supply, and a randomised controlled trial of lactation cookies found no significant difference in milk production compared with ordinary cookies. The wider evidence on galactagogues remains uncertain, and ACOG advises that they shouldn't be a first port of call.
​
So eat the oat cookie because it's a good, satisfying snack that's easy to keep in the house. You don't need a special biscuit to be good at this.
​
If you're genuinely worried about your supply, that's worth proper support rather than a snack. A lactation consultant, your child health nurse or the Australian Breastfeeding Association helpline will look at how feeding is actually going, which is where the real answers usually are.
Set up somewhere to feed yourself while you feed your baby
Here's the thing that made the biggest difference for me, and it isn't a recipe.
​
Pick the two or three places you regularly end up feeding - one side of the couch, your side of the bed, the chair in the nursery - and put food and water within reach of each of them.
Â
A basket works well: a water bottle, a bar, some trail mix, crackers, a nut butter sachet, a napkin and your phone charger. Then a second basket in the fridge with yoghurt, cheese, boiled eggs, washed fruit and hummus, so that opening the fridge on empty at four in the afternoon gives you something immediate rather than a decision to make.
​
What you're doing is making the good option the easiest one available, which matters enormously on the days when your Capacity is low and every extra step is one you won't take. That's the whole idea behind the way I approach this, and eating is where it shows up first.
Common questions
Why am I so hungry while breastfeeding?
Making milk takes a significant amount of energy, so the hunger is your body doing its job rather than anything going wrong. Eating more, and eating more often, is the appropriate response.
​
What are the best healthy snacks while breastfeeding?
The ones you'll actually eat when you're exhausted, which usually means a combination of protein and carbohydrate that needs no preparation. Yoghurt, cheese and crackers, eggs, nut butter with fruit, and trail mix all do the job.
​
What snacks increase breast milk supply?
There's little good evidence that any particular food does, despite how often lactation cookies are recommended. If supply is a concern, speak to a lactation consultant or child health nurse.
​
What should I eat while breastfeeding when I have no time?
Anything that requires no decision. A stocked basket beside where you feed removes both the walking and the thinking, which are the two things that stop you eating.
​
What can I keep beside the bed for night feeds?
Bars, nuts, trail mix, dried fruit, crackers and a full water bottle, restocked once a day rather than when you notice it's empty.
Eating properly shouldn't take more Capacity than you have
Most of what makes this hard isn't a lack of knowing what to eat, it's that everything requires a bit more energy than you have spare at the moment you need it. The Pink Reset is fourteen days of small changes that make the sensible thing the easy thing, starting with food, and it arrives as one short email each morning that takes about two minutes to read.
​
It's free, and you can start it today.
This article is general information based on my experience and on public health guidance, and it isn't personal nutrition or medical advice. If you have concerns about feeding, your supply or your own health, please speak with your GP, child health nurse or a lactation consultant.