Meaning & use
swaddling
Last updated
Meanings
noununcountable
The practice of wrapping a baby tightly in a blanket or cloth so that it feels secure and sleeps well.
Grammar: Uncountable: swaddling helps some babies settle.
Patterns
- swaddling helps someone
- learn swaddling
Swaddling helped the newborn sleep through the night.
The nurse showed us a safe method of swaddling.
Doctors advise stopping swaddling once a baby can roll over.
noununcountableold-fashioned
Strips of cloth wrapped around a newborn baby, used in the past; the phrase swaddling clothes means these.
Grammar: In this sense it appears in historical contexts and in the phrase swaddling clothes.
Patterns
- wrapped in swaddling
- swaddling clothes
The baby was wrapped in swaddling and laid in a basket.
Paintings of the period show infants in tight swaddling.
The museum displays swaddling used in the sixteenth century.
verbtransitive
The -ing form of swaddle: wrapping a baby snugly in cloth.
Grammar: Takes an object: she is swaddling the baby.
Patterns
- be swaddling someone
- swaddle someone in something
She is swaddling the baby in a soft cotton blanket.
I spent a week practicing swaddling a doll.
He was swaddling his daughter when she finally fell asleep.
Common combinations
- swaddling blanket
- A thin swaddling blanket keeps the baby warm.
- swaddling clothes
- In the old story the child lay in swaddling clothes.
- safe swaddling
- Safe swaddling leaves room for the hips to move.
- learn swaddling
- New parents often learn swaddling at the hospital.
- swaddling technique
- Her swaddling technique got faster with practice.
Synonyms and how they differ
- wrapping
- Wrapping is a general word for covering anything, while swaddling is specifically about a baby wrapped snugly for comfort.
- bundling
- Bundling means dressing someone in many layers for warmth, which is less about secure, tight wrapping.
- swathing
- Swathing is a literary word for wrapping in layers of cloth, and is rarely about babies today.
Opposites
Word family
- swaddle verb
- to wrap a baby tightly in cloth
- swaddled adjective
- wrapped snugly, as a baby
- swaddling clothes noun
- cloths once used to wrap newborns
Commonly confused: swaddling or swaddling vs swabbing?
swaddling vs swaddling vs swabbing
Swabbing means cleaning with a swab or mop, and has nothing to do with wrapping babies.
Practice
The midwife demonstrated ___ to the new parents, wrapping the baby snugly in a cotton blanket.
Choose one answer.
Swaddling is wrapping a baby snugly. The other words are real activities but do not fit wrapping a baby in a blanket.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “swaddling”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.