“I heard that singing to the baby is a good thing… but the only problem is that I can’t sing!”
“I heard that singing helps my son… Is this true?”
“What kind of music should I sing to my baby?”
It is increasingly thought that singing to a child, from birth and even during pregnancy, has important benefits, both for your baby and for you.
In adults, singing strengthens the immune system, according to research by scientists at the University of Frankfurt in Germany, published in the latest issue of the US Journal of Behavioral Medicine.
The scientists analyzed the blood of people who sang in a professional choir in the city, before and after a 60-minute rehearsal of Mozart’s Requiem. They found that concentrations of immunoglobin A, immune system proteins that function as antibodies, and hydrocortisone, an anti-stress hormone, increased significantly during the trial.
A week later, when choir members were asked to listen to a recording of the Requiem without singing, they found that their blood composition did not change significantly.
The researchers, including Hans Guenther Bastian from the Institute for Music Education at the University of Frankfurt, concluded that singing not only strengthened the immune system but also markedly improved the performer’s mood.
A new mother could certainly benefit from an enhanced immune system, especially with lack of sleep and all the rest that comes with parenting a young baby!
The benefits for the child are more basic. The calm voice of the mother or father is very calming for babies, and singing has a natural calming effect on children.
There’s a lot of research suggesting that music has many other benefits for the brain, as Kidshealth.org, one of the best-known parenting websites, says:
“Children who grow up listening to music, singing songs and moving to the beat enjoy what experts call a ‘rich sensory environment.’ That’s just one way of saying that a child is exposed to a wide variety of smells, tastes, colors and sounds. And children enjoying such a rich environment do more than just have fun. Researchers believe they forge more pathways between the cells of their brains.”
The music doesn’t have to be complex either, and you don’t have to be a good singer! His son will love it when he sings to her, even if he feels he’s completely deaf.
So start singing, you don’t have to do anything complex! She can sing any old nursery rhyme or song, and can even make up her own songs, to match what she is doing at the moment.
For example, you can sing while you wear them:
I’ll put…
One arm in, one arm in. Other arm in, other arm in Now my head goes through the hole, Now my head goes through the hole Over my tummy, yeah over the tummy And buckle me up! Button me up!
You can sing this to almost any tune you like, it really doesn’t matter too much! You will notice that I repeated almost all the lines. This just makes it fall more naturally into the rhythm. Of course, you can repeat each line as many times as you want. Just have fun and your baby will have fun too!
