Our top tips for using your Baby Shower or Mother’s Blessing to ensure you enjoy a well nourished and well supported postpartum.

Proper nourishment and real rest in those early weeks aren’t a nice-to-have. They shape your milk supply, your healing, your hormones, your whole transition into this new season. And one of the simplest, most practical ways to protect that time is a meal train.

I get asked about this often, how do you actually organise one? How do you ask people to bring food, or show up in the right way, without it feeling awkward or like you’re imposing? Here’s what I’ve learned, from my own postpartum and from the hundreds of mamas I’ve supported since.

PLANNING AHEAD

Requesting a dish over a gift.

When you’re planning your baby shower or Mother’s Blessing, think about asking guests to bring a dish to freeze, rather than another gift. Put it on the invitation so people have time to prepare something proper. Some mamas set up a chest freezer at the event itself, so meals go straight in the moment they arrive.

For years, we have used Meal Train to coordinate the postpartum village, but there was so much missing. It wasn’t made specifically for postpartum. So we have built our own postpartum planning and coordination platform and like meal train, it’s free! Your Postpartum Village includes Meal drops, yes, but also school runs, errands, all the small daily hands that really hold a mother through her postpartum. You set it up, share it with your village, and they choose what suits them. No spreadsheets. No group chat back and forth. No one asking you what you already have.

MAKE IT FUN

Decorate with our recipe cards!

We love seeing our recipe cards decorating baby showers and Mother’s Blessings. “Take it, make it, deliver it with love”. No awkward asking and taking the guesswork out of what to cook.

Inside Your Postpartum Village, you can generate your own QR code poster too, print it, prop it up at the event, and let guests scan straight into your village. They can pick a recipe, a meal drop, or a task, and slot themselves in, without you having to explain a thing.

MAKE NOTE

Some helpful hints when organising a meal train.

• Request meals to be brought in glass jars or tupperwear for easy freezing and defrosting. Ask them to have the meal clearly labelled, and their name on the tupperwear if they are wanting it returned once used.
• Option: Have an esky at the front door so meals can be dropped by with ease.
• Use the Village for Mama Door Sign to let them know if you’re up for company or not. If not, a simple text to let you know a meal has been delivered is all you need.
• Remember: Your Village want to show up for you in the best way. Birth and postpartum are such a big act of surrender, and this can also mean surrendering and accepting help for those who love you.
• You can gather your village, explore all the recipes and resources inside the paid version of Your Postpartum Village. Or you can gather your free village here.

The Village for Mama Book is a postpartum recipe book with recipe gift cards to help modern mamas gather their village and organise homemade meal giving for their fourth trimester. Delicious recipes designed alongside a naturopath to help replenish and nourish a new mama post birth. Recipes cater to all mamas including vegan, gluten free and dairy free options.

Buy Village for Mama Book to start your nourished postpartum.

Gorgeous imagery by The Modern Doula