Do babies really need to wear socks? I know there are footie p.j. options where they wouldn’t, but for the other non-footie outfits? We have a dog who is obsessed with eating socks. Two very expensive surgeries later to remove them, I’m stressing about all those tiny socks falling off everywhere when baby arrives!
—Dog Mom
This seems scary (for you and the dog) and makes me a little relieved I only have snails as pets. Perhaps for this reason, I hadn’t thought much about this question. But the search for the answer was interesting.
My perusal of the literature for this query, for example, led me to this paper, which in no way answers your question but is about how babies engage with socks as being representative of baby culture. Quote: “A majority of the babies in my study, at some point during the time I spent with them, were engaging with socks, and some of them did so during several different visits. Socks seem to matter in some ways and possibly in multiple ways to babies.”
Actually, reflecting on it, this is a partial answer, because it suggests that babies like socks as a toy, so by ignoring them you may be depriving your infant.
The main reason for socks, though, isn’t as a toy but for temperature regulation. Babies lose a lot of heat through their head and their feet, and a hat and socks are used to prevent this. When caring for preterm infants, for example, skin-to-skin contact involves a baby naked other than a hat, socks, and a diaper. This encourages better thermoregulation.
For a full-term infant in a warm climate, thermoregulation is less complicated, so socks may not be necessary. But there are theoretical reasons why they are a good idea.
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