Before You Buy That Baby Girl Thanksgiving Outfit, Read This

It's 2019, and I'm wedged between the toilet and the bathtub in my mother-in-law's guest bathroom, sweating through my own maternity sweater. I'm desperately trying to peel a rigid, glittery tulle turkey dress off my screaming four-month-old. The giblet gravy is currently burning in the kitchen. My husband is knocking on the bathroom door asking if we're okay. And my oldest daughter—bless her heart, the ultimate cautionary tale for literally all of my rookie parenting mistakes—is thrashing like a trapped raccoon because the smocked collar of her sixty-dollar holiday gown is scratching her chin.

I'm just gonna be real with you: I used to think the holidays meant dressing my kids like tiny, uncomfortable Victorian dolls. I'd spend hours scrolling Instagram, convinced that a baby girl Thanksgiving outfit required layered petticoats, stiff tights, and a velvet headband the size of a dinner plate just to properly eat mashed potatoes in a dining room in rural Texas.

Now? Three kids deep, running my own small Etsy shop from the kitchen island while simultaneously keeping toddlers from drawing on the walls, I know the absolute truth about holiday baby apparel. It's a lie. The whole aesthetic is a trap. You don't need the pageant dress, you just need something that can survive a pumpkin pie casualty and a nap on the rug without leaving red indentation marks on your kid's ribs.

My grandma's obsession with freezing babies

If you listen to my grandmother, a baby is perpetually thirty seconds away from hypothermia. Every Thanksgiving, she insists the house is drafty, even though my mother-in-law has the oven running at 400 degrees for six straight hours and the thermostat is aggressively locked at 74. Grandma will chase my kids around with hand-knit wool sweaters that feel like steel wool, convinced they need three more layers.

But my pediatrician told me a few years ago that babies actually overheat way faster than we do. She explained it like their little nervous systems are still downloading the latest software update for temperature control, or something like that, so they get hot really fast but can't sweat properly to cool down. I usually just feel the back of their neck, and if it's damp, I start stripping off layers regardless of how many times Grandma sighs loudly from the recliner.

Which is why you've to dress them in breathable stuff. When you're passing a baby around a crowded, hot living room full of relatives who have been drinking wine and yelling at the Cowboys game, that baby is basically a little space heater. Put them in something that breathes, or you're going to end up with a sweaty, miserable infant screaming through the dinner prayer.

Why I've a personal vendetta against formal wear

Let's talk about the absolute nightmare that's infant formal wear. The tulle skirts. The heavy embroidery. The decorative buttons down the back that serve zero purpose other than bruising your baby's spine when they do tummy time.

I spent so much money on my oldest daughter's first Thanksgiving look. It was this gorgeous burgundy velvet thing. But here's the reality nobody tells you: babies have no waistline. They're just adorable little potatoes. So when you put a stiff dress on a baby, the skirt just rides right up into their armpits the second they sit down. She looked like a velvet mushroom for four hours.

Plus, the diaper blowouts. Oh, the blowouts. Sweet potato and breastmilk create a chemical reaction that I swear can eat through denim. If your baby has a blowout in a dress that buttons up the back, you've to pull that soiled garment up over their head. Just let that sink in. You don't want to be dragging gravy-colored destruction past your baby's ears just because the dress looked cute on Pinterest.

These days, I've completely abandoned the formal wear ship. I found the Organic Baby Romper Long Sleeve Henley Winter Bodysuit from Kianao and I'm never looking back. This is my absolute favorite thing to put my youngest in. The organic cotton actually has some stretch to it, so when she does that weird alligator death-roll on the changing table, the fabric moves with her instead of fighting me. The three little buttons on the front actually work, meaning I can yank it down over her shoulders in the event of a diaper disaster instead of going over the head. Last year, she got cranberry sauce mashed directly into the chest of this romper, and it honestly washed out because the cotton isn't woven with cheap synthetic plastic fibers that hold onto grease.

The great headband debate of our generation

I've to go off about baby headbands for a minute, because I feel like I'm losing my mind watching these giant floral arrangements strapped to infants' heads. I used to buy them. I had a whole drawer of them. Nylon bands with bows bigger than my kid's face.

But they never stay put. If you've a baby that moves even a fraction of an inch, that bow is sliding down over one eye like a pirate patch within three minutes. You spend the entire holiday party adjusting it. And when you finally take it off, there's always that awful red dent line around their soft little skull that makes you feel like the worst mother on the planet.

Not to mention the sleep issue. My doctor explicitly warned me that we need to take off those giant bows and any thick hats the second the baby falls asleep, because apparently if it slips down around their neck or over their face in the crib, it becomes a huge suffocation hazard based on how I understood the safe sleep guidelines. It's just too much anxiety for me. Why are we doing this to ourselves for a photo that's just going to get 40 likes on Facebook anyway? Just rip the giant bow off and let them have their natural messy baby hair while they nap, please.

And don't even get me started on baby dress shoes—just leave them barefoot and save yourself the twelve bucks and the headache of finding the left shoe under the sofa.

Let's talk about the turkey in the room

There's also this weird trend where people dress their babies up in literal turkey costumes. Like, a brown bubble suit with giant stuffed tail feathers. I get it, it's funny for exactly one minute. But then you've a baby who can't roll over because they're wearing a heavily padded upholstery project.

There's also the whole cultural appropriation thing. My own mother once tried to order one of those fake Native American headdress accessories for my oldest daughter's first Thanksgiving photo shoot. I had to physically intercept the package and hide it in the garage because, y'all, we're just not dressing our kids up as caricatures of marginalized cultures for a holiday photo op. Period. Stick to pumpkins, leaves, and autumn colors. It's really not that hard.

If you really want something slightly dressy but still refuse to do the uncomfortable tulle, Kianao has this Flutter Sleeve Organic Cotton Baby Bodysuit. I'll be totally honest: it's incredibly cute, and the fabric is incredibly soft, but it's just okay for my specific level of chaos. The flutter sleeves look precious in photos, but when you've an aggressive crawler who's trying to face-plant into a plate of sweet potatoes, those little ruffles act like gravy sweepers. They just drag through everything. It's great if your baby g—that's what my husband calls our youngest, like she's a tiny rapper—is still in the immobile potato phase, but once they're moving, the ruffles get messy fast. Still, as a base layer under a cardigan, it's a solid, breathable option.

Looking for something that won't make your baby scream through the appetizer course? Check out Kianao's incredibly soft, stretchy organic baby clothing collection.

The one accessory that honestly matters

While I'm banning headbands and dress shoes and itchy tights from my house, there's one accessory I'll absolutely go to bat for on Thanksgiving: a good pacifier clip.

When you've twenty people in your house, your baby's pacifier is going to hit the floor approximately four hundred times. If you don't have it clipped to them, you'll spend half the holiday on your hands and knees looking under the dining table while your uncle steps on your fingers.

A couple years ago, before I got smart, my baby dropped her paci during the appetizer course. Buster, our eighty-pound golden retriever, thought it was a floor-snack. He didn't swallow it, thank God, but I had to wrestle a slobbery piece of silicone out of a dog's jowls while my mother-in-law watched in horror.

Now, I strictly use the Pacifier Clips with Wood & Silicone Beads. They clip right onto whatever stretchy onesie we're wearing, the metal clasp honestly grips the fabric without tearing holes in it, and the wooden beads give my teething baby something to gnaw on that isn't my collarbone. It completely eliminates the dog-stealing-the-paci scenario.

Surviving the fourth Thursday of November

honestly, when you're exhausted from cooking, your feet hurt, and you're hiding in the pantry eating a piece of pie directly out of the tin, you're not going to care if your baby's outfit matched the napkin rings. You're just going to care if they were happy.

Stop buying the stiff pageant dresses and the itchy tights, and just throw them in some incredibly soft organic cotton so you can seriously enjoy your family instead of managing a wardrobe crisis.

Ready to ditch the uncomfortable holiday wear? Shop our organic, breathable baby essentials right here.

Things you're probably wondering about holiday baby outfits

Should I buy a size up so she can wear it for Christmas too?

Honestly, no. I tried this with my first kid and she just looked like she was swimming in a potato sack for Thanksgiving, and by Christmas, she had hit a growth spurt and blew out the seams anyway. Just buy something stretchy in her actual size right now. Babies grow weird, you can't predict it.

How do I get sweet potato stains out of organic cotton?

If you catch it before it sets, just rinse it in freezing cold water in the bathroom sink immediately. I usually rub a little bit of blue Dawn dish soap right into the orange spot and let it sit while we eat dinner. Hot water will bake that sweet potato right into the fabric forever, so keep it cold until you can throw it in the actual wash.

Is it okay to just leave her in a sleeper all day?

Yes. A thousand times yes. If anyone gives you grief about your baby wearing pajamas at 2 PM on a holiday, just hand them the screaming baby and walk away. A nice, solid-colored bamboo or organic cotton zip-up sleeper is perfectly acceptable holiday attire for someone who doesn't have teeth yet.

What if my baby runs really cold in the winter?

If you really think they're freezing, just layer a simple knit cardigan over their bodysuit. It's so much easier to take a cardigan off when the house inevitably heats up from the oven than it's to completely undress them from a thick fleece sweater. Layers are your best friend.

Are baby tights really that bad?

In my experience, yes. They're a nightmare to pull up over a bulky diaper, they roll down their little bellies, and babies have zero traction on hardwood floors when they're wearing them. If you need their legs covered, just put them in stretchy leggings or pants. Leave the tights for when they're old enough to complain about them themselves.