Practical tips for getting a nourishing breakfast in among the chaos of motherhood!
Good morning, dear momma…
Motherhood is one of the most amazing experiences I have ever lived. I am writing this special post about you. For you. While I am usually focused on the kids and feeding families on this blog, today, I want you to set all of that aside for a bit and to talk about you.
You are worth taking care of…
I think it is pretty safe to say that in most households, mom probably last on the list. Especially if you have newborns or needy toddlers in the house, it goes without saying that your hands are tied.
But can I ask you something?
When a firefighter goes into a burning house, who does he put the oxygen mask to first?
That firefighter is not very helpful if he is on the floor of the burning house not able to breathe because he was more concerned about getting the oxygen to the person inside. The firefighter first puts the oxygen mask to himself, so he is able to help those he is there to save.
Momma, yes tending to newborn cries is important, but if you are not taking care of yourself somewhere in there, you will crash and burn at some point.
Fill your cup so you can fill the rest of your family
Over the last 8 years of motherhood, I have grown to become incredibly protective over 2 things.
My sleep, and my breakfast.
Sleep is tough when you have babies in the house, but it can be done. I will save that topic for another day, because today we are going to talk about breakfast! Somewhere near that stack of books you know you’ll be reading to little ones all day needs to be a plate or bowl of nourishment for you.
Momma’s breakfast = not negotiable
A surefire way to get the day started off on the wrong foot is to make sure you don’t eat something. A few years ago I started a post series on my Instagram (hashtag #RGNMorningMommaFuel) as a way to remind moms to eat something, and to keep myself accountable for getting breakfast in. At the time I had a newborn, a toddler, and a school aged kid, and I found that the days I got breakfast in ran much smoother than the days where I just grabbed a quick banana.
Breakfast became a non negotiable for me. While my breakfast routine has changed over the last 3 years as my dietary needs have changed (for example, I’m not nursing babies or pregnant right now), all in all the theme has always been the same (focused on real, nutrient dense food), and it makes all the difference in the world in how my day runs.
My routine
I’m going to share some of my weekday, school morning, quick breakfast routines in hopes that it will spark some inspiration with you, my readers.
Here are a few things to keep in mind while you read!
- I get up before my kids. Period. I know that stinks. But for me, it is crucial to my sanity to have at least 15-20 minutes of quiet before the chaos begins. If you have babies, I realize this is somewhat of a wild card. I also realize however, if you have babies, they gotta nap at some point that morning, so if they are up early to nurse, simply get them in a sling or carrier, or down on the floor with something interesting to look at after they feed, and fix yourself some food. If you have an early rising toddler, give them a quick banana and raw cheese or cup of milk and set them up with some floor puzzles or their favorite book to look at while you get some food. It’s ok for a toddler to learn about someone other than themselves – awareness of others needs is a great social skill for them to learn.
- Most of these meals come together in 10 minutes or less! I found my day ran smoother eating first versus waiting until the kids got up to eat, or eating after they ate – because by that point I was so far gone on hunger. It is also inevitable that someone will always need you once the kids are up!
- The food portions and ratios of macros is what works for ME. This is meant to be inspiration. Not set in stone. Figure out what type of fuel your body works best on, and go from there. I am a recovering adrenal exhaustion and Hashimoto’s fighter, and so my food is based on what works for my body where I am at – which is waaaay better off than where I used to be even just a few years ago. While I was a nursing momma, my plate had more carbohydrates because I needed it to function and keep up. While I am certainly not on the low carb train, I do tend to eat breakfast lighter on the carb side as I follow more of an Adrenal Reset type plan, eating more of my carbs later in the day.
- You will notice I don’t have smoothies on my breakfast plan. If you love smoothies, they make a great quick breakfast, so go for it as long as they are packed with nutrients! I like to chew my breakfast, and enjoy a hot breakfast versus super cold and that is just personal preference. You can see a great green smoothie recipe here – my kids love it for breakfast! I used smoothies when I was nursing as a mid morning snack a lot.
- You will notice I side my breakfast with a bit of kimchi or sauerkraut every morning! It is an easy way to add a vegetable to breakfast, help your food digest, and infiltrate your gut with nourishing bacteria for the day!
To see my weekday “Morning Momma Fuel” posts, you can follow the hashtag #RGNMorningMommaFuel on my Instagram!
Every Monday, I hard boil 1 to 1 1/2 dozen eggs for the week.
I peel them and get them into a container and they make for fast breakfast additions for myself, as well as the kids’ breakfasts and lunchbox/snack packing for school. I use my Instant Pot which makes this process super fast, but for years (including all of my newborn years!) I steamed them in my steamer or boiled them the old fashioned way!
Hard boiled eggs go with just about anything!
From freezer breakfast cookies (which is our Friday staple!) to veggie wraps, freezer muffins, healthier pancakes, or a bowl of granola with raw milk. One of my favorite uses for hard boiled eggs is with dinner stir fry leftovers! Just top those stir frys with an egg – it is so fast and so good! (See Tip #4 for lists of breakfast cookie and granola options!)
Egg free friends!
We had to be an egg free house for a while back when one of my girls couldn’t tolerate them. It is do-able! Instead of hard boiled eggs, keep a freezer bag of these great sausage patties in the freezer – you can thaw it out in the pan in minutes.
Veggie minerals have made ALL the difference in how I feel every morning.
It seems almost too simple! After I had my second baby, I started eating lunch and dinner leftovers for breakfast sometimes when my hands were too full to cook, and I feel in love with eating soup for breakfast. Give it a try for a week or 2 before you write me off!
Soup goes with just about anything!
Eggs, bacon, freezer biscuits or muffins, breakfast cookies, veggie scrambles or hashes, avocados. The soup takes just minutes to warm through and all of those sides are easily prepped in minutes as well.
Some tips for making soup an easy breakfast
- Make one large pot of soup every week to eat off from all week long. If you search “soup” on my search bar at the top of this screen, there is literally over a dozen different soups to try! Make soup a part of your prep day, or serve a doubled portion for a meal on the weekends so you have some left for during the week.
- When you make soup for dinner, double the recipe and fill the freezer. A lot of my soup recipes are already large portions for my family of 5, so if you are a smaller family, these will feel like big recipes – use the leftovers for your breakfast!
- Freeze in convenient portions for your family. When it was just my husband and I and a baby or 2, I used to freeze in these little pint freezer containers so I could just pull one portion out for my husband and I. These days with 5 mouths to feed, I tend to freeze in quart and half gallon portions so that when I pull soup out of the freezer it can feed me for breakfast and/or lunch as well as my family for a meal.
I mentioned in the soup section how much of a difference I noticed that veggie minerals made in my morning, so veggies are a part of my breakfast most days of the week in some form.
Veggie and egg quick prep tips (or bacon/sausage/avocado if you are egg free)
- Chop the night before. Since the chopping can be what hangs most people up on the time to get this done, take 5 minutes and prep your veggies the night before. You can just dump them into a hot skillet the next morning and your breakfast can be done in less than 10 minutes.
- Keep it simple. Two veggies with some onion and garlic make the most amazing skillet veggie hash! Use what is in season so it doesn’t get boring. There are great veggie hash and potato hash recipes in my cookbook Nourished Beginnings – my kids crave it! It is a great one to make large portions of so the kids are eating the same thing as you.
This concept is similar to the soup section.
Plan to double your recipe every time you bake, and your freezer will always have something to pull from. Before “Breakfast Cookie Fridays” ever became a thing in our house, it was “nursing momma needs food all the time”! Now that I have school aged kids, it is fun to celebrate Friday with breakfast cookies, but all of those recipes were born out of my hungry nursing days!
Freezer baked goods go with just about anything!
From soup to fried eggs, bacon, and smoothies! You will notice that all of my recipes for these items are a mixed bag of different gluten free flours. My purpose in this is to balance the muffins or breakfast cookies so that it isn’t just a bunch of grain or starch to shoot blood sugars up. There is definitely a method to the madness!
- Paleo Butternut Squash Pancakes
- Protein Rich Banana Muffins
- The Ultimate Breakfast Cookie
- Lemon Breakfast Cookie
- Protein Packed Molasses Breakfast Cookie
- Healthy Apple Protein Breakfast Cookie
- Blender Batter Cranberry Breakfast Cookie
- Soaked Oat Pancakes
- Blueberry Buckwheat Muffins
- Cinnamon Raisin Zucchini Muffins
- Morning Glory Muffins
Freezer and thawing tips
- Lock in moisture by wrapping and freezing leftovers as soon as they are cooled. I don’t always wrap in plastic wrap, but everything does go into a freezer bag and into the freezer by the time they are cooled all the way.
- I warm freezer baked goods up right from the freezer most of the time. Put them on a baking sheet and into the oven. Turn the oven to 350, and by the time it pre-heats the cookies/biscuits/muffins are thawed and warm, ready to eat. You can alternatively set them out overnight to thaw.
Don’t forget about granola in the pantry!
Granola was always my fall back on unpredictable newborn days (which is most days with a newborn!). It is the reason I have so many recipes on the blog! Pour raw milk or coconut milk over your bowl, or sprinkle it over yogurt!
- Simple Cinnamon Granola
- Grain Free Apple Granola
- Pumpkin Granola
- Cherry Granola
- Cranberry Orange Granola
- Strawberry Quinoa Granola
- Honey Rhubarb Granola
Frittatas are the rushed moms breakfast bake!
Looks fancy, but honestly frittatas are actually one of my fall back breakfasts on mornings I have lost track of time or have early risers. It looks and feels like a weekend breakfast casserole, but really takes just 15 minutes to make a skillet full that feeds the whole crew.
Egg scrambles are just as fast – simply cook your veg for a few minutes and then scramble the eggs in – you can be done in less than 10 minutes.
Egg cups/muffins are a fun, portable breakfast for kids, but also make a great side to a bowl of soup! There is a recipe here and one in my book Nourished Beginnings. They freeze up great too! You can use the tips for reheating in the muffin/breakfast cookie section to see how I heat them from the freezer.
Listen, I physically lived on dinner leftovers for breakfast for a full on year after I had my 3rd baby.
I would make a huge skillet stir fry for dinner and eat off the leftovers the next morning as I sleepily nursed the newborn. Then I would do it all over again for the next day! Change it up by topping your dinner leftover with a dreamy yolky egg or wrap it all up it all up as a breakfast wrap, and you can transform dinner into a savory breakfast that will fuel you all morning!
What about the kids?
I totally realize the kids need to eat too, and these meals are great for kids! My kids eat the same as me about half the week I would say. They tolerate things like soaked oatmeal well that I do not, and love smoothies in the morning (which I do not!), so there is usually a few days where I use that as a quick breakfast for them. For more details on my breakfast rotation for the girls, you can read this post.
My coffee routine
Because I know it will be asked about in the pictures, I’ll let you know how I take my coffee! Please know that I am absolutely aware that coffee isn’t for everyone. This is simply for those that are interested. If you are not, go ahead and hop down to the next section!
I tolerate coffee just fine – and yes I go days without it sometimes and don’t have a headache or symptoms. I truly enjoy the taste, the experience, the process of making it with love…and, let’s face it…in a crazy day filled with diapers, owies, piles of laundry, and cleaning up spills, sometimes starting your day with a little something that makes you happy and brings you joy is definitely a good thing!
I make 8oz (1 cup) of coffee (This is my favorite coffee brand – it is mold free and very clean sustainable source. Once you taste it, you’ll never be able to buy another brand – it is so delicious!), and then blend it for 30 seconds with 1 tablespoon of Bulletproof MCT oil, 1-2 teaspoons of butter, and half a scoop of grassfed collagen. It is a lovely, frothy, creamy delight that also keeps my blood sugar in check with all of the satiating fat and zero sugar. It is so good!
I also wanted to mention that I French Press my coffee to keep it clean and non toxic. I store my coffee in this airtight sealed container to keep it fresh and moisture free so it doesn’t mold.
My supplement routine
In a world where our soils are majorly depleted and not given proper resting periods to replenish, I have found I really do feel my best when supplementing. I know this can be a touchy subject in some circles, so if you feel strongly that supplements are not needed, you can absolutely skip by this section and just enjoy all of the real food breakfast ideas that I provided in this post! (Make sure you hop down and catch my final thoughts though!)
First and foremost, I want to clarify that this is what works for me. I have had some branding questions on what I use, so that is what this section is for. If you are unsure of how to supplement with what is best for YOUR current body needs, I recommend working with my friend Lydia, NTP who can look at your unique biochemistry and make suggestions based on what your body is in need of. She does HTMA testing via mail (no doctor’s note needed!) and will work directly with you, no matter where you live!
With my breakfast I always take:
- Quality multivitamin
- Quality cod liver oil (use coupon code GENERATION10 at checkout for 10% off!)
- Whole food sourced vitamin C
- Dessicated Liver (use coupon code GENERATION10 at checkout for 10% off!)
- Probiotics (I rotate between OrthoBiotics, Prescript Assist, Latero-Flora, and Just Thrive. The last 3 on that list you can use the coupon code GENERATION10 at checkout for 10% off your order!)
- Supplements specific to my thyroid needs such as selenium, methyl B complex, slow release magnesium, and potassium
(Remember that I am not a physician/practitioner. I cannot make recommendations for what you should take or dosages that are right for you – this is what works for me, and meant to give you an idea of what my routine looks like as well as answer the brand questions.)
Dear momma, you are so important.
It took me until I was 3 kids into this thing to realize that how I took care of myself mattered. You are the heartbeat of the home and if you are not well, the whole ship sinks. When I have taken the time to take care of myself I always take care of my family better.
You are allowed to take 15 minutes to have a meal.
Did you hear that? Set that baby down with something interesting to look at while you fix some food (you will be glad you start these little increments of learning how to play on their own early so that as they get older they will do it with ease! YES looking at an interesting toy, or out the window is play for an infant! That is a whole different topic for another time!), get those toddlers a stack paper and crayons and let them have at it, and get those big kids either helping in the kitchen, helping with the little guys, or send them off to play for 15 minutes. Your kids deserve a mom that is nourished and can be what they need for the day.
Oh, Renee, I love that you are a voice and a leader for this message! I love your coffee, too! 😉 Such a beautiful message. Also, I need to start making sausage patties ahead of time, like you mention! So many great recommendations! xo and love back!
Thank you Megan!
Oh my goodness I need to incorporate all of these tips! I really need to work on putting myself first, I haven’t in a long time. Some days I do good, but honestly most days I don’t. Thank you for putting all of these wonderful tips together and for reminding moms that we are important too.
Great post Renee! I am on board with most of those tips, I don’t have kids but I do want to make the most of my time, so these time-savers are great. A lot of people don’t get the whole leftovers for breakfast thing but it makes things so much easier!
Thank you Mark!
I love your breakfast ideas! Breakfast is the most important meal and your advice was very helpful.
Thank you!
Renee, I can’t tell you how much I love this. I wish I had this wisdom and advice when Jack was a wee baby. He wasn’t a very good sleeper and nursed constantly. I think pouring from an empty cup is why I ended up with PPD. It’s hard as a new mom to remember to take care of yourself to you can better care for your littles. Keep up the good work! xo
This is so important for new mums who are having trouble getting used to adjusting! I can’t think of anyone who needs that energy and nourishment more, so thanks for sharing – I will be sharing too!
Such a good post Renee. Self-care is such an important topic! If you don’t take time for yourself and do thing like eating breakfast, your body will do it FOR you, and it really sucks when it does because it does it on its own schedule. And that unfortunately usually takes a lot more time than you have – like days, weeks, or even months. These breakfast ideas are so helpful to prevent that from happening!
I LOVE THIS! I can so use some momma fuel. Thanks for the inspiration!
You’re welcome Katja!
Thank you so much for the hand holding in this post! I love your ideas – and want to implement several of them right away! Let’s talk timing… What time are you typically eating these breakfasts? What time do you get to eat lunch? My little people are up around 6:15…I’m usually out of bed at 6:30. Is there any “science” to eating first thing in the morning…or would eating at 7/7:30 still work?
You do what you gotta do momma! I’ll tell you our schedule but you figure out what works with your house. I get up at 6 and eat by 6:30. My kids are up at 7. Sometimes my older 2 get up to go potty around 6 but we have a rule about not getting up for the day til 7am. I think I started that around age 3 – I’m starting to work on it with my toddler. I use a clock in their room with black tape over the minutes so the hour is just showing and they can get up if they see the 7. If they need to use the potty thats fine. My older 2 usually go back to bed and go back to sleep or just read a book in bed til 7. My toddler still gets up at 630 sometimes but she will go play while I eat, or she will play in her bed until I’m ready to go get her – she is by far my most laid back baby – she will wake up in her bed and just play there til I get her most days! As far as lunch and other meals it depends on the day. Right now I do follow an Intermittent Fasting schedule because it works well for me so I actually eat a small lunch around 10 and then my “dinner” at 1pm and I’m done eating for the day. I break this fast on the weekends and eat dinner with the family. My husband eats dinner in his car on the way home from his commute and I sit down with the girls at dinnertime and have a cup of tea while they eat so there is still community 😉 For my thyroid stuff it just works well for me to eat this way. Figure out times that work for you!
What a wonderful post Renee! I love all the time saving ideas for busy Mommas! I need to start boiling eggs in advance again. You have inspired me to get more organized with my meals.
This is such a wonderful post with so much inspiration ! I love how creative you are yet everything is so practical. Thanks for sharing this wonderful post !
I don’t have kids yet, but definitely love these time-saving breakfast ideas! If I don’t eat within an hour of waking up I am pretty much a wreck–not just until I eat but for the rest of the day!
Momma or not, I want this brekkie!
These are such great tips, Renee! I’ll definitely be checking out some of those breakfast cookies- how fun! And I’m all about eating leftovers for breakfast 🙂 Thanks for the great reminder that yes my kids are important, but so am I.
These look so delicious, thanks for sharing!
I love all these helpful ideas!
I’m not a mom but I can only imagine how important these tips are. Taking care of yourself is so important for the rest of your family!
This is such a helpful post, even to those of us who aren’t mothers, all the principles are still the same!
Renee, this is so helpful!! and yes, us mamas need our sleep and breakfast! AMEN!!!!!
This is all wonderful advice for anybody with a busy lifestyle, kids or not. Thanks for the great article!!! <3
Thank you Amanda!
What is the recipe for the eggs, avocado and mushroom potato bowl? You show it three times in your blog but never say what it is exactly. 🤷♀️ Thank you.
Hi Christine! That is really just pan cooked potatoes like a hash, and then I just cook a couple eggs and top with avo! There is a crispy breakfast potato recipe with specifics in my cookbook, Nourished Beginnings!
What do you mean you “blend” your coffee with the oil, butter, and collagen? If these are whole beans, do you mean when you grind them, and before you store them, or do you actually blend your beans in like a blender? or do you mean, you add the ingredients when you brew the coffee or?? I would love to take my coffee in a more healthy way than i already do, and would love to give this a try.
Hi Audrey! I brew the coffee, and then blend in in a bullet blender with butter and collagen – it makes it frothy like a latte!