04/15/2021
Swaddling and Babies
New theories put forth in the late seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries about children and childhood greatly influenced children's clothing. The custom of swaddling-immobilizing newborn infants with linen wrappings over their diapers and shirts-had been in place for centuries. English and American parents continue to this day with swaddled their children.
When swaddling was still customary in the early years of the eighteenth century, babies were taken out of swaddling at between two and four months and put into "slips," long linen or cotton dresses with fitted bodices and full skirts that extended a foot or more beyond the children's feet; these long slip outfits were called "long clothes." Once children began crawling and later walking, they wore "short clothes"-ankle-length skirts, called petticoats, paired with fitted, back-opening bodices that were frequently b***d or stiffened. Girls wore this style until thirteen or fourteen, when they put on the front-opening gowns of adult women.
