10 Family Traditions to Start With Your Baby
From creating rituals out of planning ahead to fun holiday activities to look forward to each year, you can start making family traditions from your baby’s first year and on. If you’re itching to craft legendary stories, bonding moments and opportunities to develop healthy habits, here are a few ideas to get you started.
1. Family Dinner: Taco Tuesday, anyone? In a perfect world, family dinners would happen every day. But in reality, it’s not always easy. Set aside at least one day of the week where the whole family takes part in making the meal, eating together and catching up while sitting around the table. Your baby may not know what’s going on at first, but as he grows, he’ll look forward to the routine.
2. Saturday Night Dance Party: Turn up the tunes, turn off the TV and get the party started every Saturday night with a baby-friendly dance party. Create a playlist with the same opening song to kickstart the evening of fun. Then mix in some oldies but goodies with a few new favorites, and you’ve got yourself a tradition to look forward to each week.
3. Commemorative Birthday Cakes: Mark each of your child’s birthdays with a homemade cake that commemorates what they loved the most at that age. Use fun cake pans or creative cake toppers, or use your child’s current obsession or favorite toy to inspire your sugary creation. It doesn’t matter if you’re a master baker or more comfortable with mixing something straight out of the box, just make it personalized, for a tradition to look forward to each year.
4. Holiday Kick Off: Pick a weekend before Christmas to really jump-start the holiday season. Trim the tree, bake cookies, decorate the house and go to a baby-friendly holiday event or activity. Even better, DIY screen print custom t-shirts (and onesies) to really put a stamp on the tradition.
5. Start-of-Summer BBQ: Take the pressure off of finding the right weekend to get everyone together and offer to host the first big BBQ bash of the year at your house. Better yet, find a signature recipe to mark the occasion. It will quickly become a foodie memory for your baby as she grows older.
6. End-of-Summer BBQ: Does the summer often end with the feeling that you missed too many opportunities to host a big party at your house? Make the Labor Day BBQ a mainstay at your address, and create an event that will bring your friends, family and future adult child back every year.
7. Pre-Thanksgiving Pizza Party: The big day of feasting is a family tradition in itself, but why wait for the stress of the cooking, baking, entertaining relatives and whatnot to get it started? Start off the long weekend with a pre-Thanksgiving pizza party. Use the night before for some quiet time as a family to order in or make your own — just make it easy to enjoy. Your baby may be sound asleep by the time the pizza is done, but this is a great tradition for tired parents too!
8. Saturday Morning Breakfast and Your Fave Chill Music: Breakfast with the Beatles, pancakes and Pink, whatever/whoever your favorite genre or band, pass the musical torch to your baby with a family tradition that starts the weekend off right. Keep the TV off and straight up stream your choice of music while happily making and eating breakfast as a family.
9. New Year Dream Boards: Is it too early to start a dream board for your baby? Probably not. The best part of this tradition is that it’s beneficial for everyone in the family. Map out your dreams and goals for the new year on a dream board and make goal setting a part of the family conversation.
10. Full Moon Walks or Hikes: The only planning necessary for this is to look at the calendar and lace up. Full moons offer a ton of light at night and make for a truly magical (and quiet) time to connect with each other, the outdoors and yourself. Better yet, your little one will likely love the stroller ride in the open air at bedtime.
What family traditions do you do with your kids? Tweet us yours @BritandCo!
(Photos via Getty)
