Dear Jess: Stop buying the velvet holiday dresses for your baby

It's currently July, you're sweating completely through your maternity shorts in the hundred-degree Texas heat, and for some ungodly reason, you're scrolling the internet looking at a stiff, synthetic red velvet monstrosity with eighty-two sequins on it. I need you to just close out of that browser tab and take a breath because the pregnancy hormones are absolutely lying to you right now. I'm you from six months in the future, writing this from the trenches of December 26th while scraping dried sweet potato casserole off the high chair, and I'm begging you to listen to me before you waste eighty bucks on a garment that will make your third child scream so loud the neighbors will think we're running an illegal dentistry practice.

I know you're out of your mind with excitement about finally having a baby girl after surviving two feral boys. You have this vision in your head of matching her little bows to her tights and taking these pristine, golden-hour photos by the tree while the boys sit quietly in the background reading scripture or whatever it's you think is going to happen. Bless your heart.

You seem to have conveniently blocked out what happened during your oldest boy's first Christmas. Remember the three-piece tweed suit? The one you bought because some twenty-two-year-old influencer in Utah posted a picture of her kid wearing it while staring thoughtfully out a frosted window? Remember how he threw up an entire bottle of formula all over the vest, and because the pants had actual functioning tiny buttons instead of an elastic waist, he ended up spending his first Christmas evening wearing nothing but a diaper and a pair of reindeer socks my mother bought at the gas station.

I'm just gonna be real with you, ninety percent of the baby girl christmas outfits you see online are designed by people who have never actually had to fold a squirming, unhappy infant into a car seat.

That velvet nightmare is a trap

Let's talk about tulle and taffeta for a second because I've developed a deep, burning hatred for both of these fabrics over the last few weeks. You think she's going to look like a little sugar plum fairy in that massive layered skirt you've sitting in your cart right now. What's actually going to happen is that the scratchy netting is going to rub against her chubby little thighs until she gets a rash, and you'll spend the entire Christmas Eve candlelight service at church trying to pry the fabric out of her diaper tabs while she thrashes around like a baby alligator.

And the snaps. Good Lord, the snaps. You would think that clothing manufacturers understand that babies expel bodily fluids at an alarming rate, but for some reason, the second an outfit is designated for a holiday, they decide crotch snaps are suddenly illegal. They put these tiny, invisible pearl buttons down the back of the neck instead. So when she inevitably has a massive blowout right as your mother-in-law walks through the front door, you can't just slide the outfit down her body. You have to pull the soiled dress up over her head, smearing mustard-colored disaster all over her ears and her hair.

I learned this the hard way at Thanksgiving. I had to hose her off in the laundry room sink while the turkey got cold.

Dr. Davis and the great sweat check

I ended up dragging her to the pediatrician the week before Christmas because she had this weird red rash all over her neck that I was convinced was the plague, but Dr. Davis just took one look at the heavily embroidered holiday sweater I had shoved her into and sighed. He told me that most of these fancy holiday clothes are basically little baby ovens because infants are apparently terrible at regulating their own body heat.

He mumbled something about checking the nape of their neck or their tummy to see if they're sweating, instead of touching their freezing cold hands and feet to gauge their temperature. I guess the science behind it's that their circulatory systems are still figuring out how to push blood all the way to their toes, so their hands are always going to feel like little icicles even if they're currently baking in a synthetic polyester blend. If her neck feels sweaty, the outfit is cooking her alive.

He also completely ruined my Pinterest dreams by pointing out that the glued-on pearls and sequins on that velvet dress you're looking at are basically a choking hazard waiting to happen. The way he explained it, anything a bored four-month-old can pinch between her fingers and rip off is going to go straight into her mouth, and I frankly don't have the upper body strength or the mental fortitude to perform infant CPR while simultaneously trying to baste a ham. So the sequins are out.

What actually survived the family dinner

Instead of the velvet trap, I want you to go look at the Long Sleeve Organic Cotton Romper. I bought this in an absolute panic three days before our family photos when I realized none of the fancy clothes I bought were genuinely going to work, and it ended up saving my sanity.

It's just a really simple, incredibly soft henley bodysuit that doesn't scream "I spent three hours getting dressed," but when you pair it with a velvet bow on her head and some decent ribbed tights, she looks beautiful and festive without acting like she's trapped in a straitjacket. I swear by this thing because the organic cotton genuinely breathes. She didn't break out in those weird red splotches she gets from cheap mall clothes, and when she spit up halfway through opening presents, the fabric just wiped clean without leaving a giant stain.

Plus, it has actual functional buttons at the bottom. When she needed a diaper change in the middle of a chaotic living room full of wrapping paper and screaming toddlers, I just unsnapped it, did the deed, and snapped it back up without having to remove a single layer of clothing. It was a Christmas miracle.

I'm way too budget-conscious to be spending sixty bucks on a garment that she's going to wear for exactly four hours before outgrowing it forever. The best part about buying a solid, high-quality organic piece like this is that she can wear it on a random Tuesday in February when we go to the grocery store. It doesn't look like a leftover Santa costume.

Managing the pacifier chaos and the Texas weather

You're also going to need to clip her pacifier to her shirt because losing the binky under my uncle's truck in the driveway during the family farewells is a rookie mistake that you really shouldn't be making on kid number three. We ended up using one of those Wood & Silicone Pacifier Clips.

I'll be perfectly honest with you, sometimes the whole wooden bead look feels a little too "crunchy earth mother" when you're trying to dress her up for fancy photos by the fireplace, and it can kind of clash with the traditional holiday aesthetic. But I honestly don't care anymore because the metal clip seriously grips the fabric without leaving holes in the cotton. When she was getting fussy on Christmas morning, she just gnawed on the silicone beads instead of trying to chew on my good necklace. It kept the pacifier off the floor where the dog had just thrown up a piece of wrapping paper, so in my book, it's a win.

Also, please remember that we live in rural Texas, which means there's a fifty percent chance that Christmas Day is going to be eighty-five degrees and humid. My mom always told me to dress babies warmly because they catch a chill, but my mom also raised us in the eighties when everyone smoked indoors, so we take her medical advice with a grain of salt. If the weather decides to be completely unhinged and hot, I highly suggest having the Flutter Sleeve Organic Cotton Bodysuit on standby.

It has these little delicate shoulder ruffles that make it look way dressier than a standard plain onesie. You can let her crawl around in just that if the house is sweltering from having twenty people jammed into the living room with the oven running all day. If the wind picks up or the air conditioning kicks on, you just toss a little knit cardigan over the flutter sleeves and you're good to go.

If you want to really enjoy your holidays instead of fighting with buttons and listening to a baby cry because her skin hurts, browse through some natural, breathable baby clothes that double as fancy wear when you add a few accessories.

The reality of baby tights and shoes

Let me tell you something about baby tights that nobody ever mentions on Instagram. They're designed by sadists. Unless you buy the really good, thick ribbed ones, they're just going to roll down over her little belly every time she sits up, pooling around her knees and making her look like a tiny, disgruntled old man. You will spend half the day hoisting them back up her torso.

Just shove her feet into some warm festive socks and accept that any hard-soled shoe on a four-month-old is a completely pointless projectile waiting to fly off and hit your mother-in-law in the eye.

So please, July Jess. Put down the credit card. Stop looking at the velvet. Stop looking at the tulle. Buy something soft, buy something with crotch snaps, and mentally prepare yourself for the oldest boy to break at least one ornament before noon.

If you're ready to give up on the scratchy dresses and want to find pieces she can honestly sleep, play, and eat in without screaming, go find her a holiday outfit that won't ruin your entire day.

The messy questions you're probably asking yourself

How do I dress my baby girl for Christmas without her freezing?
It's all about layering stuff you can genuinely peel off when you get inside. Put her in a good, breathable organic cotton long-sleeve bodysuit as the base, add some thick ribbed tights, and bring a cardigan. Grandma's house is probably going to be heated to the temperature of the surface of the sun anyway, so you want to be able to strip the baby down to just the cotton romper when she starts getting red in the face.

Are the sequins and beads really that dangerous?
Yeah, they kind of are. Even if they feel like they're sewn on super tight, a determined baby with nothing else to do during a long church service will manage to pry them loose. Once they pop off, they go straight into the mouth. It's just not worth the anxiety of watching her like a hawk every single second just so her dress sparkles a little bit in photos.

Can I just put her in festive pajamas all day?
Absolutely you can, and honestly, you should if you're just staying home. Just make sure the pajamas are snug-fitting or specifically labeled as flame resistant if you're going to be hanging around fireplaces or a million lit candles. The fire safety standards for baby sleepwear are really super strict for a reason, and a lot of those cheap fast-fashion holiday pajamas you buy off random websites don't meet them.

What if she ruins her expensive outfit before dinner?
She is going to ruin it. Accept this now. She is going to spit up, she's going to have a blowout, or a toddler is going to wipe a chocolate chip cookie on her shoulder. This is exactly why I stopped buying dry-clean-only or expensive delicate fabrics for infants. If she's wearing a high-quality cotton piece, you can just spot treat it in the sink with some dish soap, throw it in the dryer for ten minutes, and put it right back on her.

Do I really need to buy a different outfit for every holiday event?
Lord no. Nobody is paying that much attention to what your baby is wearing except you. Buy one really comfortable, solid red or deep green organic outfit. Put a gold bow on her for the Christmas Eve service, switch to a red bib for Christmas morning, and put a little reindeer sweater over it for the family dinner. It's the same base outfit, and you save yourself about a hundred dollars and a lot of laundry.