My daughter will be 6 months right after Thanksgiving. I’m excited to start giving her solids. Especially holiday inspired dishes! Here is how to introduce baby food around the holidays.

Start a Little Early

A few days to a week before Thanksgiving or whichever holiday your celebrating, introduce the first food. Because baby is learning to eat new foods you have to wait between 2-3 days before introducing a new food. You want to make sure she doesn’t have an allergic reaction. Which is why you want to start a few days to a week early! Therefore you can add 2-3 different foods to her plate. It’s not going to be a lot of food. But a little something to celebrate!

Mixing Foods

Once you’ve introduced 2 foods in which your baby does well – with no reactions to any of the foods. You can then mix the two or serve them side by side.

Foods to Make

Start with vegetables. Thanksgiving foods traditionally have lots of mashed vegetables already. Before adding butter and seasonings save a scoop of mashed potatoes, squash and/or sweet potatoes. I am going to make chocolate pumpkin cookies for thanksgiving. Therefore I’ll save a few scoops of the pumpkin purée. It’s the perfect consistency.

Exceptions for ME

Bean broth is one food I give to my baby seasoned. Therefore, this is a food you can wait to give once she has tried a variety of foods.

Texture

Make sure the fruits and vegetables are puréed. You can always mash them with a fork, use a mesh strainer or a blender to get smooth consistency. If it looks too thick add some breast milk, formula or water to thin it out.

Holiday Foods to Make for Baby

• Mashed potatoes
• Squash
• Sweet potatoes
• Green beans
• Broccoli
• Carrots
• Pumpkin
• Stuffing (this one is after baby has already tried many different foods)

Puréed!

Make sure these foods are puréed and no seasonings have been added. Again, you want to introduce one food at a time to make sure there isn’t any allergic reactions. If you mix a bunch of foods on the same day, for the first time you won’t know which foods may have given your baby an allergic reaction.

Meal Planning

Meal planning is a lot of fun. Don’t go too crazy but definitely have easy mashable foods on hand. Bananas are easy and so are avocados. I have a whole chart on starting solids. You can check it out HERE.

How do you introduce baby food around the holidays?