SD definitely got enough to eat. If not always what she wanted, i.e. the kind of food considered luxurious by FW - think of of those multi course meals with eleborately decorated pheasants you've surely seen in historical movies, or for that matter many sweets - but there was never a suggestion she was starved.
(The kids weren't starved in the sense of not getting enough food full stop, either. In the famous scene where Wilhelmine recounts her sister Friederike (the first one to get married) mouth off FW re: food, she has Friederike complain that the food was awful and unenjoyable, not that it wasn't there. (This is the scene when FW starts to throw plates soon, but not at Friederike, at Fritz and Wilhelmine.) (Friederike will leave Berlin soon for Ansbach, which helps with the courage, undoubtedly.) How much Wilhelmine exaggarates about the food being awful was of course heavily debated among Hohenzollern historians ever since. On the one hand, we do have Fritz' weight from when he and FW were visiting Saxony and got on that famous scales where August the Strong had all his guests weight, at Königstein, and it's not below avarage, even taking account that he was fully clothed (like everyone else). And if you recall, Stratemann reports such scenes like FW being a Disney Dad, feeding pregnant (with Ferdinand) SD with chicken soup, telling Wilhelmine to take care of Heinrich (the then youngest before Ferdinand's birth) and ensure he gets the fish he wants to eat, and in the previous year he reports on FW touring the Christmas market and buying sweets for his kids. While Stratemann is as pro FW as Lövenörn is against him, I don't think he made that up - FW is just the type to play the good housefather when he's feeling sentimental, which his highly pregnant wife or Christmas approaching would bring out of him. But that wouldn't stop him from insisting everyone eat healthy like the Spartans during the rest of the year, especially the boys.
No, SD would not have been breastfeeding. Another thing Stratemann reports on is how Ferdinand's wetnurse was chosen from a variety of candidates in the spring of 1730, renember? It's a French Colonel's wife who makes it in the end. I refer you to my Stratemann write up at Rheinsberg for more details, it's an interesting glimpse of how wetnurses were chosen.
(FW: I can't understand why all my kids speak French rather than German...)
Another thing re: SD's weight - according to Wilhelmine, she was in denial about being pregnant with Amalie and thought it was already menopause, and thus there weren't the usual midwives and wetnurses etc. ready and FW had to assist with the birth. Leaving some room for exaggaration, that story still would not work if SD hadn't already been a somewhat heavy woman by the time Amalie was born. Which was years before 1730. So she did have some weight to lose and a far way to to to a skeleton.
Re: Løvenørn letters: Sep 10, 1730
(The kids weren't starved in the sense of not getting enough food full stop, either. In the famous scene where Wilhelmine recounts her sister Friederike (the first one to get married) mouth off FW re: food, she has Friederike complain that the food was awful and unenjoyable, not that it wasn't there. (This is the scene when FW starts to throw plates soon, but not at Friederike, at Fritz and Wilhelmine.) (Friederike will leave Berlin soon for Ansbach, which helps with the courage, undoubtedly.) How much Wilhelmine exaggarates about the food being awful was of course heavily debated among Hohenzollern historians ever since. On the one hand, we do have Fritz' weight from when he and FW were visiting Saxony and got on that famous scales where August the Strong had all his guests weight, at Königstein, and it's not below avarage, even taking account that he was fully clothed (like everyone else). And if you recall, Stratemann reports such scenes like FW being a Disney Dad, feeding pregnant (with Ferdinand) SD with chicken soup, telling Wilhelmine to take care of Heinrich (the then youngest before Ferdinand's birth) and ensure he gets the fish he wants to eat, and in the previous year he reports on FW touring the Christmas market and buying sweets for his kids. While Stratemann is as pro FW as Lövenörn is against him, I don't think he made that up - FW is just the type to play the good housefather when he's feeling sentimental, which his highly pregnant wife or Christmas approaching would bring out of him. But that wouldn't stop him from insisting everyone eat healthy like the Spartans during the rest of the year, especially the boys.
No, SD would not have been breastfeeding. Another thing Stratemann reports on is how Ferdinand's wetnurse was chosen from a variety of candidates in the spring of 1730, renember? It's a French Colonel's wife who makes it in the end. I refer you to my Stratemann write up at Rheinsberg for more details, it's an interesting glimpse of how wetnurses were chosen.
(FW: I can't understand why all my kids speak French rather than German...)
Another thing re: SD's weight - according to Wilhelmine, she was in denial about being pregnant with Amalie and thought it was already menopause, and thus there weren't the usual midwives and wetnurses etc. ready and FW had to assist with the birth. Leaving some room for exaggaration, that story still would not work if SD hadn't already been a somewhat heavy woman by the time Amalie was born. Which was years before 1730. So she did have some weight to lose and a far way to to to a skeleton.