Before we start, I’d like to give some context: in Latin America, traditions are a thing. For my generation (born in the mid-80’s) and the ones that come after, this is unfortunately fading. But for my mother’s and grandmother’s generations, these things are still important and they still swear on things such as old wives tales.
Now, I’m sceptical but I respect everyone’s right to have their own beliefs. I do not appreciate being pressured to behave according to other’s beliefs. This post is about the pressure of old wives tales in my family (especially from my grandmother) and how they could be hilarious, ridiculous (sorry grandma) or irritating. Sometimes all three at once.
Old wives tales probably vary in each country and culture, so I’m very much looking forward to reading your comments and experiences and I encourage you to share them. Always in a respectful way, of course. 🙂
So now, let’s discuss the highlights of Paraguayan old wives tales for pregnancy, postpartum and nursing.
Don´t Touch Needles
A few days before having my baby, I was crocheting a lot, as it was nearly the only thing I could do by that time. I felt like a whale stuck on the shore. So after the baby arrived, all of the unfinished projects were scattered around the house.
When my grandma came to visit for the first time, she saw all of the unfinished crochet projects sitting everywhere and told me not to touch needles until my baby’s umbilical cord fell off (I’m not sure if she meant only crochet needles or any kind of needles). Not that I had time to keep crocheting back then, but why was I not supposed to do that? I forgot to ask.
Do you know the answer?
Knot In The Stomach
When holding my baby, I was not supposed to rotate him very quickly (e.g. from having him looking towards me to holding him with his back facing me) because according to grandma, his stomach would rotate slower than him and this would result in him having a knotted (twirled) stomach.
Don’t Twist His Clothes
When washing bub’s clothes, I was warned that if I twisted his clothes and manually squeezed out the excess of water, then when baby wore them he’d have pain in his bones and would twitch during his sleep. For me, twitching in sleep is a natural thing we all do and depends on what we’re dreaming, but if my baby twitched I was “accused” of twisting his clothes.
Grandma dropped her jaw but remained silent when I told her I washed baby’s clothes in the washing machine and that the centrifuge took care of the extra water, no twisting involved. I’m not sure whether or not this was an even worse sin, but I got away with it. 🙂
Hiccups
There are two popular traditional solutions for hiccups. I can´t decide which one is more gross.
You can either spit on a piece of cotton and place it on baby’s forehead, or put one of the baby’s father’s socks on baby’s head (like a beanie). I’m not sure if the sock should be clean or sweaty. Either way… eew!
I caught grandma in the act of directing the salivated piece of cotton towards my baby’s face. I intercepted and stopped that action immediately! I tried to explain to her that my child had hiccups daily even when he was still inside my tummy and that it was just something he did. This situation turned into a struggle but you have to stand up for yourself. No means no.
Otitis
I was lucky enough not to have this problem with my baby, but I was still told that in the event that he had inner ear pain, I was to smoke a cigar (yes, like the Cuban ones! We have them here too) and blow the smoke into his ear. Fortunately I didn’t end up in a situation where I needed to try that one.
What (Not) To Eat During Nursing
Here we have a long list and I am aware there is much controversy on what to eat and what to avoid during the breastfeeding period. My paediatrician told me that most are old wives tales and that I should follow my common sense and observe if and how my baby was affected by what I ate. So I did.
But of course, during family meals I would be censored from lemonade, because it would turn my milk sour in the same way milk goes bad when you squeeze a lemon on it, but then encouraged to eat a lot of maize and foods that contain maize as a main ingredient (such as taco shells and many typical Paraguayan foods).
Apparently dairy cows are fed large amounts of maize to produce more milk. I had no problems with this but should I really be following a dairy-cow-diet?
Make Him Sleep With A Bra
To train my newborn to sleep, the advice was to put my bra (preferably the one I was wearing that day) in the crib with him. This was supposed to help him sleep tight through the night.
Because he was just a couple of weeks old and waking up every two hours, I got to the point of trying this one. So I put him (asleep) in his crib and carefully placed my bra beside him. As a new mom, I went in 5 minutes later to check. He was happily chewing the bra, probably enticed by the smell of milk. This result backfired of course, so we quickly discarded the technique.
It Doesn’t Stop There
Of course, it doesn’t stop there. The baby keeps growing and I hear less old wives tales the older he gets (or maybe grandma just gave up on me?). I keep learning new things. Now that he can walk and run around, I’m proud to see him practising his yoga skills (caught him doing the downward facing dog). But I was immediately told that, by doing that, he was not necessarily into fitness or yoga (which is something I do regularly) and what it really meant was that he was “asking for a little brother or sister”. No pressure. Sigh.
I ask myself about the science behind these old wives tales. Are there explanations tied to them that make them make sense? Is my deducing capacity just narrow? If you know the explanations please comment!
If it’s not the case, where do they come from? They can be as fascinating as they are crazy (some of them at least). They are, in any case, part of a tradition and folklore and this makes them special enough for me to share them with you. 🙂
