Long time no tea!
We’re at the park.
Hubby is running around after our 20 months old and mumma is intaking vitamin D.
As I was sitting here looking at all the children running around and going through our Instagram profile, I remembered what my childhood tea was – chamomile.
Again, I am very Romanian, therefore so is my mum. In Romania we don’t give our babies (if they are breastfed) anything else liquid – I mean no water, nothing!
Around 6 months of age, when we start giving them some solid food also (think polenta and semolina pudding – very flavourless, poor kids!), they are allowed some water and chamomile tea.
We (when I say we I mean Romanians) are strong believers that chamomile brew is an excellent first drink for the little ones.
It offers colics relief – a thing that only God (and new mum’s) know how important it is; mainly because it is frustrating for a new mum to hear her baby crying for no obvious reason but also because we don’t like to see our little darlings suffer – so chamomile does the trick – it really does!
Just a few gulps of it and soon your little bundle of joy will be so much happier – awesome, I know!
I used to dab cotton buds in cold chamomile tea and clean my baby boy’s eyes – newborn eyes have a lot of “sleep dust” on them almost at all times; makes sense since all they do is eat, poop, sleep, repeat – tedious, tedious stuff.
Chamomile is highly anti septic also so if babies scratch themselves or you accidentally scratch them, again – clean the scratch with chamomile tea.
My brother had phimosis and my mum treated this too, with chamomile tea. She used to brew some tea, put it in a jar, allow it to cool for a bit and then they went “fishing” (help me out here, we all know what phimosis is and I just can’t think of a nicer way to put this) in the jar. A couple of weeks and the inflammation was gone and my brother escaped surgery – THANK YOU, CHAMOMILE!
Peter was not very well during the evening. His mother put him to bed and made some chamomile tea. One table-spoonful to be taken at bed-time.
Beatrix Potter – The Tale of Peter Rabbit
As an adult, I drink chamomile tea because is helps with stress relief and fights sleeping disorders – now I don’t like the taste ( maybe because I abused it in my early years) but if you combine it with mint is absolutely fantastic! I like it like this:
- Throw fresh mint leaves in a pot and cover with water
- Bring to boil then take off the hob and allow the brew to cool down for a minute
- In a cup put like 3 teaspoons of dry chamomile flowers and add the mint tea on top
- Cover, let it steep for 5 minutes, add honey and enjoy!
I still haven’t given up the habit of washing my face with chamomile tea – bye bye blackheads and grease spots (no one likes those) and instead of intimate gel (wink wink ladies), I use, that’s right – Chamomile tea!!!!
Some other properties of chamomile would be:
- Antioxidant
- Anti inflammatory
- Fights cancer
So there you have it! Such a versatile plant that has been a part of our family forever and has cured various minor things for many years!
I really hope you will try this ancient cure and let me know what you think!
With spotless love, Ale.
