More about Babydolls

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

Continued from

Here is the roots of the babydoll

http://www.smittenlingerie.com/blogs/news/96680775-the-surprising-history-of-babydoll-lingerie

What we wore when I was little was not nightdress, though it could be used as such. It was a dress of light fabric with a "waist" that was from just below the armpit to just below the nipple It was to serve several functions, including a nightdress, and had to be long enough to do so. That length was half-way to the knee. Because little girls, even up to age 8 would be in diapers on occusion, and this was before prefolds became prominent, Diapers were doubled and sometimes tripled, depending on how long it would be between times that a bathroom would be available. The dress had to cover them fully enough to be "decent". The other purpose was development of posture and keeping your panties from showing "so that people will not think you are a trollop". The babydoll was long enough to do that but short enough to make you have to think about it, which, if the first time this was done was when you were 7, this came as quite a revelation since you had not been reased in dresses and skirts. A few times being told "Guess whose rubber panties I can see" followed by getting the back of your dress lifted and your derriere lightly patted and rubbed and the other girls giggling and one maybe asking "Is she wet?" taught you well. That means that for this purpose the girl would be diapered and rubber pantied and put in the babydoll and told to go about here daily business and Mommy would keep an eye on her, or if she was 6 or over, this would be put on her if company was coming over or maybe if she was to go with Mommy to a nearby store, meaning that if she was not reasoanbly careful her panties would show and they would be RUBBER panties for which she would be teased in some humiliating way. They were called "babydolls" for just that reason: "baby" and "doll" and the other purpose they served was punishment or "chastisement". They usually did come with a ruffled panty that was full enough to cover a diaper and rubber panties, but, for training purposes or if diapers were used, they were not used since they would just be in the way of changing and to promote properly "ladylike" posture, Mama wanted the "baby" aspect to be prominent. So seldom were the panties used that "babydoll" meant the dress while the whole thing was called a "babydoll set". If worn after diaper or training age, usually for bedtime on warm nights, the panties would be used. In my area, where most ladies worked in dress shops, many of the babydolls were homemade with no panties and I saw very few store-bought sets

The came in sleeved, sleeveless with strops, or strapless with a good elastic and had some fullness to them with some being full-circle. The sleevless and strapless were good because they were not sized exactly and had room for growth and could be used longer and were much easier to make. They were unliked by the 5-9 year old girls where I lived when I was that age because weaering them was an ordeal or had some other unpleasant aspect. I was shocked when, in 1962 some of my cousins, two of whom were girls, came to live with us for a while and the one who was 15 had a babydoll that she wore around the house of her own accord

In the middle 1960's there was an approximately knee-length, give or take an inch or two either way dress with a very high waist or point from which the dress flared out that looked like a babydoll for both big and little girls called a "babydoll dress"