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Aw, I'm sorry about your wife's health challenges, I'm sure that's difficult for y'all to deal with. It's so nice that she supports your dietary convictions, despite what she's going through. I don't know if you or she has read much in this area but you might try out resources by PCRM (Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine): https://www.pcrm.org/good-nutrition/nutrition-for-kids and their book on the subject, https://www.amazon.com/Healthy-Eating-Life-Children-Barnard/dp/0471436216. My wife and I read this kind of thing when we were planning our own family and it gave us the confidence we needed to feel comfortable with a vegan pregnancy and having vegan kids, as well as to defend our decisions when talking with skeptical family members.

As for specific foods I'll echo others here who recommend giving your daughter similar foods to those you enjoy yourself. My own kids (3 and 6 y/o) enjoy pasta, rice, quinoa, and other grains, and in the protein area, chickpeas, hummus, tofu (we do a cubed "eggy" version similar to what grownups enjoy in tofu scramble), vegan cheese, and peanut butter and nuts in general. Both of our kids currently enjoy roasted broccoli and cauliflower; my daughter likes corn and cucumbers and pickles, and my son enjoys a lot of fresh and dried fruits. They both enjoy popcorn and we've found "quinoa curls" and other vegan snacks at the grocery that they enjoy (in moderation!). Good luck!!

Your body needs nutrients, not “meat” or “dairy”! That’s very bizarre and very behind the times on those nutritionists, how annoying.

I’m vegan at 4 months, no problems whatsoever so far. My midwife basically asked me right off the bat at 8 weeks how much calcium and protein I’m getting and then said “you’re obviously doing great and have a very good handle on everything, there’s nothing to worry about here.”

My first recommendation is to try plugging what you eat into Cronometer to see how you’re already doing. Just do a typical day, or better yet log for a week to see how you do on average over several days. This was how I knew what to tell my midwife and how I know what gaps to watch for (eg, I don’t always get a ton of potassium, which is common for Americans but like who even knows that?).

If you google “vegan pregnancy” a few books come up, available on amazon - I haven’t checked any out myself because I’ve heard they’re mostly pretty introductory, but I’m sure they can help with some of the initial planning and everything. I’ve heard good things specifically about The Vegan Pregnancy Survival Guide. I know I’ve seen some blog recommendations around too, hopefully someone else has some good ones to add but I’ll hunt around bc I really should have checked them out by now myself too!

For supplements just like as a general idea, I personally take Ritual prenatals (that’s my referral code FYI for a discount just in case but can totally just take off the share part too) with a vegan vitamin C gummy (to aid iron absorption) and vegan probiotics in the morning. At night I take choline and vegan DHA/EPA, and a TUMS for calcium if I didn’t have enough broccoli and spinach during the day (the Ritual prenatal doesn’t have calcium because it interferes with iron absorption, and it doesn’t really have enough choline or EPA). That’s like very specific to me wanting to micromanage what I take because full multivitamins make me super nauseous, there are plenty of vegan full spectrum prenatals that would be way cheaper and easier 🤣

Currently 15 weeks (also my mom went through 5 successful vegan pregnancies in the 80s/90s, and raised 6 healthy vegan kids to adulthood).
I take Rainbow light prenatals, and Opti3 omegas, and was taking some iron supplements while TTC.
/r/TryingForABaby is an excellent resource, no matter your lifestyle.
Just make sure you are eating enough (use a calorie tracker if necessary), and with enough variety, and you should be good!

She goes 2 days a week and the menu repeats, so I don’t have too many meals to recreate.

Today’s school menu was a bean and cheese roll up, green beans, apple sauce and 2% milk.

I made a bean roll up (home made refried beans, brown rice, quinoa, salsa), green beans with nooch, applesauce and pea milk.

I bought this book awhile back. It’s has lots of fun ideas, nothing earth shattering, but it helps me plan her meals at home and school. She also likes looking at the pictures and helping to pick out her meals

..and if you make too much you can apparently save some for tomorrow with refillable baby food pouches!! http://www.amazon.com/EZ-Squeezees-Refillable-Pouches-pouches/dp/B00B0S7H66

Just googled this.... God I wish I knew about these 3 years ago!

That’s ridiculous. I had an amazing vegan pregnancy and had not problems at all. It’s perfectly safe to be v eggar while pregnant, especially because we regularly avoid most of the foods that can be extremely dangerous for pregnant women.

Here are two resources I used while in pregnant.


https://www.amazon.com/Everything-Vegan-Pregnancy-Book-Lifestyle/dp/144052551X/ref=mp_s_a_1_6?keywords=vegan+pregnancy&qid=1569798429&s=gateway&sprefix=vegan+preg&sr=8-6

https://www.amazon.com/Vegan-Pregnancy-Survival-Sayward-Rebhal/dp/0980144035/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=vegan+pregnancy&qid=1569798525&s=gateway&sprefix=vegan+preg&sr=8-3

But doing a quick amazon search shows a lot more. Eat a varied diet, don’t overload on vegan junk food and you’ll be fine.

Here you go. Becoming Vegan: The Complete Reference to Plant-Based Nutrition (Comprehensive Edition) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1570672970/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_Tl2TBb25CPDTX

It’s got a good chapter about kids’ needs. It helped me a lot.

Baby's Only Organic Non-GMO Soy Protein Toddler Formula, 12.7 oz https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000063D0C/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_1vuSCbPD31RJD

Has vitamin D but cheaper

This is the B12 supp that our whole family uses including our 1.5 and 4 year olds.
https://www.amazon.com/Garden-Life-mykind-Organic-Vitamin/dp/B00K5NEPJY/ref=sr_1_3_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1486063362&sr=8-3&keywords=b12%2Bspray&th=1

The book Becoming Vegan is a really thorough book that discusses vegan nutrition. I believe there was a chapter specifically discussing pregnancy.