Why Babies Love to Listen to Their Parents Sing
Babies do love to listen to their parents sing. But, so many parents hesitate to sing because they’re afraid their voice isn’t very good.
Also, they often just don’t know what to sing to their baby.
In this blog post, I’m going to share with you the reasons you need to stop being afraid.
I will also help make it easier to sing to your baby.
Why Parents are Afraid to Sing
Many parents think that they have to be an opera singer or the next contestant on “The Voice” to sing to their baby.
I think that’s because we have so much access to music these days.
Electronic devices and earbuds make it so convenient. But, I think that can also cause you to compare your voice to the voices that you’re listening to.
That can be intimidating. So let’s break down why you need to sing to your baby regardless of the quality of your voice.
In fact, if you hesitate to sing to your baby, you may actually hinder their development.
But keep reading. I’m going to share some scientific research about parents singing to their babies.
I hope it will convince you to hesitate no more.
Reasons for Parents to Sing to Their Baby
Now, it can be hard to do an activity like singing especially when you don’t feel competent.
But, if you use the information that I’m going to give you, you’ll find that singing to your baby will become more important to you and get easier.
Babies respond to voices and their effects.
In fact, your baby is going to recognize your voice before they will recognize your face.
Studies show that they especially pay attention to your singing voice.
It’s true! All over the world, babies love to listen to their parents sing.
You don’t have to be a trained vocalist to do that.
Even parents who think they can’t sing will try when they have a cranky, crying baby on their hands.
Science Proves Parents to be Correct
Science has been catching up with what parents have known probably since the beginning of time: singing is a powerful force.
But, until recently, we haven’t understood just how powerful it is in the development of a child.
Studies have shown that a 16-week-old unborn baby can respond to music played to them. At 25 weeks, they begin to process sound.
So singing may serve a really important role in the development of your child.
From birth, all of us pay strong attention to singing because of how our brains are wired.
That’s the reason your baby loves to listen to you sing.
We know from various studies that the adult brain is wired to listen for musical patterns.
When we anticipate these patterns while we’re listening, the reward centers in our brains are activated.
So, in other words, listening to a singing voice is a very satisfying activity.
Babies Listen to Parents Sing and Learn
Additional research has also shown that singing to your baby may actually help them have less language problems later in childhood.
So much so, that according to Dr. Sally Goddard Blythe, the director of The Institute of Neuro-Physiological Psychology, you may risk not singing enough to your child.
It it turns out that the musical patterns of melody, rhythm, rhymes, and lyrics help babies prepare for several key developments.
When they listen to the words in a song, that helps them to identify individual sounds and syllables. This eventually helps them to connect letters and sounds.
So singing to your baby helps their learning development.
Parents Sing to Their Babies to Help Them Grow
But researchers have found that singing also affects babies physically.
One study of premature babies in the NICU showed some fascinating results when they were exposed to their parents singing.
Their little heart and breathing rates improved and they slept better.
Their feeding patterns became more regular and they experienced better weight gain.
Another study showed that babies listening to their parents sing resulted in better controlled levels of cortisol.
Cortisol is the hormone related to stress and arousal in our bodies.
The interesting thing was exactly how the parent singing to their baby controlled the cortisol level.
Whether the cortisol level was too high or too low, the effect of the singing brought the cortisol level to the proper range and kept it there.
Babies Develop Socially and Emotionally When Parents Sing
Finally, other studies have shown that there are social and emotional benefits for your baby when they listen to you sing.
The combination of your voice, the musical patterns, and the words of the song help your baby to focus attention on the activity.
It also creates an emotional calm for your baby and you. Let’s face it, when things are calm, everyone feels better.
In fact, when you sing to your baby you usually raise the pitch of your voice and sing at a slower tempo or speed.
The emotional character of your voice will also rise and you are usually rocking or moving softly and looking into that sweet baby’s eyes.
“Your Musical Baby” Class Encourages Parents to Sing
But besides feeling like their singing isn’t good enough, parents often just don’t know what to sing to their babies.
So let me tell you about “Your Musical Baby” Class.
It’s filled with singing activities. These musical activities will help you learn songs and give you the confidence to sing to your baby.
In one of the activities, babies and parents will sometimes sing a short “solo”. In other activities, they sing several verses of a song.
The musical patterns in the songs encourage memory, learning words, and developing sentence patterns.
The added benefit is that you and your child are singing together.
Remember, babies focus on voices from the beginning. Your baby will especially pay attention to your singing voice.
Ultimately, the intellectual, physical, and emotional benefits of singing just cannot be overestimated!
“Your Musical Baby” Class Encourages Lifelong Learning and Deep Relationships
Most importantly, singing and the other activities in “Your Musical Baby” Class will help you and your baby become lifelong learners together and develop a closer, deeper, more loving relationship.
I’d like to give you an even better understanding of why singing to your baby is so important.
So, I’m inviting you and your baby to observe a “Your Musical Baby” Class for FREE on any Saturday morning.
All you need to do is use the signup link below and you’ll get all the details in an email.
I hope you will get those details because I’d like to see you and your baby in the next Saturday class.
On the “Beautiful Heart Musical Journey” with you,
Susan
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