It's your baby's first Thanksgiving on solid foods. You want her to enjoy the feast, but you also want her to be safe and get the nutrients her body requires. Here are the tips you need for a happy, healthy holiday.

Angie Frazier, a Troy, N.H., mother of two, found it easy to prepare traditional Thanksgiving foods her infant daughters could digest and enjoy. "I simply mashed peas and cooked baby carrots with a fork to give them a healthy vegetable," she says. "For the turkey, which tends to be stringy when torn apart, I cut up small, manageable bites."

By 6 to 8 months, babies can manage strained, mashed or pureed vegetables and fruits, says Wendy Kosloski, a licensed nurse with Amherst Pediatrics in Amherst, Mass. At 8 to 10 months, pureed meats can be added. As Baby gets more teeth – usually not before a year – these can be minced.

The trick is to cook everything to a very soft consistency, says Denise Font of Miami, Fla., whose two daughters celebrated their first Thanksgiving meals with mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, peas and turkey.

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