Mystery solved! At least for me. My mother used to explain to me that in days of yore, crawling babies were dressed in long dresses so that the bottom of the dress could be put under the bed post to keep baby safe while mother was outside fetching wood or hanging laundry. Made sense to me.

A post by Lisa Louise Cooke, penned by Allison DePrey Singleton, gives a parallel explanation. Initially, babies were swaddled, meaning they were wrapped tightly in cloth from head to toe so their arms and legs would stay straight. Once out of swaddling, parents dressed their children in long skirts to prevent their crawling about, which was considered “barbaric and unnatural.”

Really? Love Lisa Louise Cooke’s blog and podcasts…. so full of good information and wonderful tidbits of history.