Old Wives Tales
The collection of old wives tales below are based on my personal experience that I have tested over the years. However, I do not guarantee that they will or will not work for everybody.
Chinese Chives Myth
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Rub baby's gum with chinese chives |
Reason
Teething will be less painful and easier for the baby True or False? |
Answer: True
Supposed to be True
I just heard this one a couple of months ago so have not tested it yet as all the children at my centre were too ‘old’ to test. What this tale is about is that you rub the baby’s gums with 2 sprigs of chinese chives on the day he or she is 4 months old according to his chinese age. This is supposed to ensure that when he starts teething, it will be less painful and easier. In addition, you are supposed to string some marie biscuits and hang it round the baby’s neck. You then take the biscuits one by one and symbolically wipe the baby’s mouth with it. This is to ensure that the baby will not salivate so much during the teething process. I checked this myth with my older relatives and they all agreed that it is true. My mother said that she did this with Marie and she really did not have any problems at all.
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String 12 pieces of Marie biscuits with a piece of red thread and hang it around the child’s neck. |
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Rub the child’s gums with a couple of chives |
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Starting with the first piece of biscuit, rub the child’s mouth and the area around it with the biscuit. |
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Every time that you rub the biscuit, say to the child “you will not have any problem teething and you will not dribble saliva.” |
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Once you have completed rubbing all the 12 pieces of biscuits, the parents must eat the biscuits. This is so that the parents will help the child swallow the saliva during the teething process. |
This little baby started teething before his fourth month and he had a few problems. Firstly, he refused to suck from the bottle because of the discomfort so we had to spoon feed him. He also started drooling a lot. We decided to try out this myth to see if it really works. We will let you know the results in a couple of months!
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| READER COMMENTS |
| Posted by Calyn Yeoh
2 September 2009, 04:54:29 PM
hmm..my mum tried before for my son during 5-6 mths, but i don't think it works as my baby still have a lot of saliva |
| Posted by Cecilia Koh
2 September 2009, 10:57:09 PM
Hi Calyn |
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