Nourishing Your Body Through the Season of Recovery

There’s something about fall that makes you want to slow down. The weather gets cooler, the days get shorter, and suddenly you crave staying home with a warm meal, a cozy blanket, and your new baby.

While every season has its own challenges when it comes to postpartum recovery, the fall season naturally includes warmth, nourishment, rest, and a slower pace. From warming soups and stews to seasonal root vegetables and hearty meals, fall is one of the easiest times of year to embrace the foods and routines that can make the postpartum season feel a little more manageable.

If you're preparing for a fall baby, or you're already in the thick of postpartum, here's why we think fall might just be the best season to be postpartum, and how to take full advantage of it. 

Quick Links: 

• Best Food for Postpartum Recovery
• Ultimate Guide to Fall Postpartum 
• Postpartum Meals Delivered to Your Door

1. Fall Naturally Encourages You to Slow Down

Postpartum is a season of transition. Your body is recovering from pregnancy and birth while you're learning how to care for a brand-new baby. While spring and summer have amazing perks like the warm weather, fall slows you down and feels more restful. 

The days get shorter. The weather gets cooler. There are fewer expectations to spend all day outside, travel, or fill your calendar with activities. Once we hit fall, you pretty much have full permission to stay home, which is exactly what we want to encourage during postpartum recovery.

Think slow mornings, afternoon naps when you can get them, cozy evenings at home, and giving yourself permission to let the dishes wait while you rest with your baby. It’s not the time for bouncing back, it’s the season made for recovery. 

2. Warm Postpartum Meals Are Perfect for Fall

One of the best things about having a baby in the fall is that we enter into soup and stew season!

Traditional postpartum practices, including those rooted in Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda, have long encouraged warm, cooked foods during the early postpartum period. This matches up perfectly with fall vibes. 

Instead of relying on cold, quick meals, you can build your postpartum diet around nourishing foods like:

• Slow-cooked meats

• Bone broth

• Hearty soups

• Stews

• Cooked vegetables

• White rice

• Oats

• Root vegetables

• Squash

• Apples and pears

• Warming herbs and spices

These are the kinds of nourishing postpartum foods that are comforting, easy to prepare in large batches, and perfect for the freezer. When you’re freshly postpartum and haven’t slept much with a newborn in your arms, having a warm meal that’s easy to reheat feels glorious. 

Need Fall Postpartum Meals Ready to Go?

That's exactly why we created Restorative Roots.

Our postpartum frozen meals are made with thoughtfully sourced ingredients like pasture-raised meats, bone broth, organic vegetables, and traditional fats, so you can have a nourishing meal ready without spending your precious postpartum hours cooking.

Stock your freezer before baby arrives or order meals for a new mom who could use a little extra support.

3. Fall Produce Is Perfect for Postpartum Recovery

Fall brings some of our favorite nutrient-dense foods. Pumpkin, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, beets, apples, pears, winter squash, mushrooms, and leafy greens.

These foods are incredibly versatile and can be incorporated into soups, stews, roasted vegetables, oatmeal, baked goods, and more. Many fall vegetables also store well, making them especially practical for postpartum meal prep.

A roasted sweet potato can become breakfast with eggs and sausage. Butternut squash can become soup. Apples can be stewed with cinnamon for an easy snack or dessert. It doesn’t have to be super fancy. Simple, nourishing ingredients can make incredibly satisfying postpartum meals.

4. It's the Perfect Season for Slow Cooking

Postpartum is not the ideal time to spend hours standing over the stove. Fall meals make it easy to let your oven, slow cooker, or Instant Pot do most of the work. Here are a few quick tips to optimize fall cooking: 

• Put a chuck roast in the slow cooker with bone broth, salt, and herbs and let it cook until tender.

• Make a big pot of chili.

• Roast a tray of chicken thighs and root vegetables.

• Cook a large batch of rice and freeze it to have on hand throughout the week.

• Make soup in a big pot and freeze the leftovers.

The goal in postpartum is nourishment with as little effort as possible. If you don't have the time, or simply don't want to cook, there's absolutely nothing wrong with letting someone else do it for you. You can check out ready-made postpartum soups and stews with the highest quality ingredients here. 

Hearty Sausage Stew by Restorative Roots

5. Fall Foods Feel Like Comfort Food

Postpartum can be an emotionally intense season and there's something deeply comforting about eating a warm meal when it's cold outside. It feels like a warm hug. 

You're adjusting to a new identity, recovering physically, navigating sleep deprivation, and caring for someone who depends on you for everything. Food doesn't solve all of that, but sitting down to a warm, nourishing meal can be a small way to care for yourself in the middle of it. It’s honestly the little things that can make a huge difference when you’re having a rough day while postpartum. Some simple comforting meals to have in the thick of fall include: 

• A bowl of chicken and rice congee

• A hearty beef stew

• Warm oatmeal with butter and cinnamon 

• Slow-cooked meat and vegetables

These aren't fancy meals, but they can feel incredibly grounding when you're postpartum. Postpartum self-care looks a lot less like a spa day and a lot more like sitting down and eating a meal while it's still hot.

6. Fall Is the Perfect Time to Stock Your Freezer

If there is one thing we'd recommend doing before the baby arrives, it's stocking your postpartum freezer. Having meals ready to go can make an enormous difference during those first weeks.

Fall recipes happen to be some of the best freezer meals. Soups, stews, chilis, braised meats, casseroles, and cooked grains can all make excellent postpartum freezer meals.

Instead of wondering what you're going to eat at 6 p.m. when you're exhausted, you can simply pull something from the freezer, heat it up, and eat. Postpartum recovery is all about working smarter, not harder! A little prep goes a long way when it comes to postpartum hunger.

Build Your Postpartum Freezer

Whether you're creating your own freezer stash or looking for a postpartum meal delivery service, Restorative Roots was created to make this part easier. Our meals arrive frozen and ready to keep in your freezer until you need them.

Shop our postpartum meals and give your future self one less thing to worry about.

SHOP POSTPARTUM MEALS

7. Don't Forget About Postpartum Snacks

A warm meal is wonderful but don’t sleep on postpartum snacks! Especially if you’re breastfeeding, having some go-to items to grab during nightly nursing sessions or between meals is a huge help!

Keep simple options nearby like:

• Hard-boiled eggs

• Fruit

• Yogurt

• Cheese

• Nuts and nut butter

• Oatmeal

• Homemade muffins

• Lactation-friendly treats

And this is where our sister brand, The Milk Market, comes in.

The Milk Market was created with the breastfeeding mother in mind, offering nourishing baking mixes, teas, cocoa, and treats that make it easier to have something delicious on hand during those long postpartum days.

Shop The Milk Market Here

Our Favorite Fall Postpartum Foods

If you're preparing for a fall baby, we'd recommend stocking your kitchen and freezer with foods like:

Proteins

• Grass-fed beef

• Chuck roast

• Ground beef

• Chicken thighs

• Whole chicken

• Eggs

• Slow-cooked meats

• Bone broth

Carbohydrates

• White rice

• Oats

• Sweet potatoes

• Winter squash

• Potatoes

• Root vegetables

Fruits & Vegetables

• Pumpkin

• Butternut squash

• Apples

• Pears

• Carrots

• Beets

• Mushrooms

• Dark leafy greens

Easy Postpartum Meals

• Chicken Congee

• Beef stew

• Chili

• Lentil soup

• Chicken and rice

• Slow-cooked roast

• Squash soup

• Oatmeal

• Roasted root vegetables

So, Is Fall Really the Best Season to Be Postpartum?

Of course, there's no "perfect" season to have a baby. Every postpartum experience is different, and every season comes with its own challenges. But if you asked us, fall would be pretty hard to beat!

The cooler weather encourages staying home and snuggling up with baby. Seasonal produce makes it easy to build nourishing meals. Soup and stew season means warm, comforting food is everywhere. The slower rhythm of fall pairs beautifully with the slower rhythm postpartum requires.

So if you're expecting a fall baby, embrace it. Stay cozy, eat warm nourishing meals, keep your freezer stocked and have easy snacks within reach. Let people help you and give yourself permission to slow down.

You just brought a whole human into the world. You don't need to be doing anything else right now.

Make Postpartum a Little Easier

If the thought of meal prepping weeks worth of meals is overwhelming, we can help with that part. Restorative Roots makes nourishing postpartum freezer meals with thoughtfully sourced ingredients, so you can have a real-food meal ready when you need it.

And The Milk Market makes it easy to stock your pantry with nourishing treats, baking mixes, teas, and more for those long postpartum days and breastfeeding moments.

Whether you're preparing for your own baby or looking for a thoughtful postpartum gift for a new mom, give her something she'll actually use.

Stock the freezer. Stock the pantry. Take care of Mom.

SHOP RESTORATIVE ROOTS

SHOP THE MILK MARKET