As the birth of baby #3 gets closer, I am getting ready to load my freezer with meals to take some of the stress out of cooking once the little babe is born. I have done this twice already and have been able to figure out what things work and what doesn’t for our family.

You may be thinking that this is going to be all about dinner, but let me tell you, having some breakfast options ready is what really makes all the difference for us. Especially when you have multiples. I would highly recommend having options that you can hold with one hand too (think burritos & breakfast sandwiches) because a lot of times you are only going to have 1 hand to eat with.

For our first, Dan and I spent an entire day and prepped 40 meals of all different kids. We didn’t have enough room in our freezer so we had to store dishes at both of our parents house as well. I am glad we did it because it sure did help a lot at the time, but we learned that we really don’t like frozen crockpot meals which is the bulk of what we made. Most were chicken, and we found that almost always, it came out dry.. and in our opinion, dry chicken is one of the worst things. If you do decide to go this route though, I would recommend getting some crockpot liners. They made all the difference in clean up. I will also say that 40 meals was excessive and totally not needed. I’d say 2-3 weeks worth is just fine (you will have leftover days, eat out days and possibly people bringing or sending food as well).

For Juliana, I decided to just double up on dinners to grow a freezer stock and then take one day to make some breakfast and lunch options. It worked EXTREMELY well, and is the method I will be using this time around as well. We had a few recipes that we loved, which I’ll be making again, and a couple we didn’t. My hope is that for this 3rd time, every meal will be a winner!!

To Start

The whole process for me starts about 4 weeks before baby is born. I take that week to try and use up as many items from my fridge/freezer as possible, and then give them both a good cleaning (as you can see in my nesting video). That way I have as much space for the items I make as possible. That will also make sure there is room for any food that my kind friends/family/neighbors might drop off.

I also use this week to plan my cooking calendar and make the grocery lists.

I normally plan to do my bulk cooking for breakfast, lunches & snacks over 2-3 days about 3ish weeks before baby arrives. For the dinners, I just double up on nights where I am cooking dinner for our family anyway. My calendar usually looks something like this. I typically cook dinner for my family every 3 nights or so, that way I have a day built in for leftovers, and a day in case something pops up like meeting family/friends for dinner or a special occasion.

This time I plan to prep 6 breakfast options, 5 lunch options, 4 snack options and 2 full weeks of dinners + sides (14 meals). Here is what my cooking calendar looks like. I usually leave the week baby is due open because you never know if baby is going to make an early arrival.

What I’m Making

Breakfasts

1. Waffles (I use a recipe from the recipe book that came with my blender – I just love how quick the clean up is)
2. Quiche – I’m going to make 2 this time – one with bacon, white cheddar & scallion and the other with mushroom, onion & monetary jack
3. Burritos – I triple this recipe because these are a favorite and my kids eat them too. I skip the bell peppers because we prefer them without. I do one batch with bacon, one with sausage and one just cheese (because we don’t eat meat on Fridays so it gives us a Friday option).
4. Breakfast Sandwiches – I double this recipe and do one with bacon and one with sausage
5. French Toast – The kids love these, so I double this too.
6. Pancakes – This is hands down my absolute FAVORITE pancake recipe. I usually double this in regular life so that I always have some on hand.

Lunches

Did you know that you could freeze sandwiches?? You can, and they actually thaw nicely. I don’t do too many of the lunches because they aren’t typically the biggest meal time pain point for us after having a baby. But it is nice to have a couple options for the hard days.

1. Ham & Swiss Sandwiches (I’ll make 6 of each of these sandwiches)
2. Turkey & Swiss Sandwiches’
3. Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwiches (our meatless Friday option)
4. Nann pizza (I’ll make 6 of each of these, except the Marg I’ll make 12 on lunch prep day because we’ll have 6 of them for dinner that night).
   1. Bbq chicken – BBQ sauce + mozzarella + chicken + pineapple + red onion
   2. Hawaiian – tomato pizza sauce + mozzarella + ham + pineapple
   3. Pepperoni – pizza sauce, mozz, pepp
   4. Marg – pizza sauce, mozz, tomato, basil, olive oil
   5. Pesto – pesto sauce, mozz, parm+ cherry tomato
5. Marinated chicken – for salads, paninis, pasta dishes etc… – I’ll slice some, dice some and shred some – I’ll probably make 3-5lbs to have on hand

Snacks

1. Energy Balls – Tripling this recipe, these are a family favorite… so much so that we make them for Christmas presents sometimes
2. Blueberry Lemon Glaze Muffins – Doubling these – store the glaze separately from the muffins
3. Breastfeeding Cookies – I actually haven’t tried this recipe yet so I can’t vouch for it… someone I know just swears by them and I didn’t like the ones I made for baby 2 so I thought I’d give this one a try. I’ll post the recipe at the bottom of this post.
4. Amish Muffins – These are SOOO GOOD and I’m sorry I can’t share the recipe.. it’s a family recipe from my mother-in-law and she made me promise not to share it.

Dinners

These are the dinners I’m going to make this time. I should note that we do not like meals with red sauce at my house so that is why you don’t see lasagna/spaghetti etc.. on this list. You can sub one of these for one of those if you like that! And, everyone in my house (especially the kids) really like rice & we have a rice cooker so it is a no prep kind of side for us (perfect for after baby) so you’ll see a lot of that here.. If you don’t, you could sub for a different starch.

1. Korean Beef Bowls – Serve with vegetable medley & rice
2. Chicken Wild Rice Soup – Serve with crackers or baguette
3. Chicken Taquitos – Serve with rice & black beans
4. Cilantro Lime Chicken – Serve with tomato quinoa salad (This can also be frozen, but I skip the spinach because I think it makes it too watery when thawed)
5. Maple Dijon Chicken – Serve with honey carrots & twice baked potatoes
6. Beef & Broccoli – Serve with rice
7. Pulled Pork Sandwiches – Serve with buns, coleslaw, applesauce & chips
8. Honey Garlic Chicken – Serve with cheesy potatoes & vegetable of choice (something frozen that I can just pull out)
9. Chicken Cordon Bleu – Serve with brussels sprouts & asparagus (I will make fresh veggies for the night of dinner, and buy frozen for the freezer meal one), might also make more of the twice baked potatoes from above if I am feeling up to it that night
10. Chicken fried rice
11. Southwest Chicken – I usually half the amount of beans and corn that this recipe lists
12. Enchiladas
13. Hawaiian Chicken (on p22 of the document) – Serve with rice & salad (I’ll probably just do a bagged salad for ease)
14. Philly Cheesesteaks – I’ll probably make these with steak instead of chicken and serve with hoagie buns, sautéed banana peppers, onions & mushrooms (which you can also freeze!) and chips of fries

Tips for Freezer Meals

As far as storing these dinners once you make them, I use all disposable bags/containers because dishes are a hassle after baby. I just want easy. You’ll also want to make sure everything completely cools before freezing, and remember to LABEL! I store bagged items flat so that they don’t bunch in a heap at the bottom. It creates more storage space.

For sandwiches, I store 3 sandwiches together because that is how many we will eat at a time – 1 for each parent, and the 2 kids split one. I store all the ‘snacks’ together, but only pull out say 4 muffins at a time rather than the whole bag that way we can spread out when we are eating them.

Like I said above, make sure to have some breakfasts – that is a real life saver – one handed items like burritos & breakfast sandwiches are ideal.

Be careful with frozen chicken crockpot meals – I think a lot of them come out dry and don’t love them. But if you go the crockpot route, use a crockpot liner – they make all the difference in clean up.

And again, if you clean out your freezer/fridge before making these it will make it a lot easier!!

My Calendar & Grocery List

Here the order in which I will be making things:

Here is my grocery list broken down by week. NOTE!! I did not add staples I always have on hand on my list (soy sauce, oil, basic spices etc.. so you may want to double check the recipes to make sure you have everything you need).

Week One: (remember that I double most dinners so that I can eat one for dinner and freeze one!)

Week Two:

Week Three:

Wrap it up

Alrighty guys, so that is my plan for baby 3 – let me know if you have any questions!! I hope this helps. I have a video on YT of my prep for this. That could be helpful (or fun) to watch as well!