Sibu Tales : The Spring and the Sarong Cradle

All through the Second World War and the 50's and 60's many Foochow women saw that babies were comfortably put in the sarong cradles, to lull them to sleep and to keep them asleep for a long time. The spring attached to the sarong keeps the cradle bouncing.

Accidents had happened and rumours and gossips did go around: how babies were killed because the spring broke, or the rope attached to the spring snapped, or the baby was too heavy for the gadget, etc. Some gossips even said the baby was hanged from the sarong!!

But by all means, mothers or baby sitters must take care of the sleeping baby. Any carelessness could definitely have horrific results. It was all a matter of careful watching my mother would say. I brought up all four of my babies this way. We did keep a watchful eye.

My greatest watch over my babies was when they were feverish and my mother and I would not even sleep a wink. Fevers disturbed us all the time. My mother had always been very watchful, over all her children (my siblings) and even my own children when we were staying with her in Sibu.

In this photo I took, the busy mother is an Iban hawker and she has to take care of her child at the same time. The sarong cradle is a comfort zone to say the least. And she can take care of her stall. In Sarawak, customers are always very compassionate when they see this kind of scenario.

Very often, when a baby starts crying, the mother or the child minder just has to push the cradle a bit, and the  spring starts to bounce and the baby is happy!

What a lovely South East Asian gadget. Many people agree that when a baby is put into a sarong cradle or bouncer it feels that it is back to its mother's womb. It feels as if the womb is cuddling it.