How Do Babies Learn When You Sing to Them?
Babies love songs, and when you sing to them in your own voice, they are overjoyed with glee. Since time immemorial people have used songs to sing to their babies. Songs have a deeply calming effect on your baby. It often falls asleep when you sing to it. If your baby is upset and cries, songs are the perfect way to soothe your child. In just a few minutes your baby will stop crying and listen to your voice singing- it works wonders for an upset child!
Reasons why you should sing to your baby?
When you sing to your baby, they start to recognize your voice and bond with you. The moment you start singing in your own voice, you become the most important voice to your baby. Your voice gives your baby a high level of love, peace, and security. You may have noticed if your baby is upset and crying in the arms of another person, he/she promptly quietens down when you speak. Babies learn sounds when they are in their mother’s womb so exposing them early to songs helps them to develop an emotional bonding with you!
Babies do not like changes
Babies like life to be defined and predictable. In short, they hate changes. A change is something that triggers off an upset baby. As a parent, you can make your baby familiar with the music. You may play baby songs for waking up, eating, sleeping and other daily routine transitions from one activity to another. Babies feel happy when they are aware of what comes next. The more secure they feel, the more relaxed they are.
Learning the language
Music is nothing but language. This means when you expose your child to songs; your child easily learns new words. Later, this helps your child in communication and social interaction. With your singing, the language of your baby improves. As the baby gets older, he/she will try to copy you and ends up blabbering in order to sing in tune with you.
New words with new songs
When you sing to your baby about something or someone, your baby identifies that word with the subject. For instance, you can hold up a stuffed teddy bear and sing a song about the teddy bear. Your baby identifies the teddy bear and the words of the song that associates the soft toy with it. Likewise, when you sing about the parts of the human body, you can gently tap your baby’s feet, hands, heads, etc. so that he/she learns a new word.
Songs for babies involve a lot of rhyme and rhythm. They love to hear these patterns of words and often sway their heads in tune with the song. Music makes a baby happy. They associate music with love, security, and bonding. As a parent, you should involve songs in their play time as well. A happy baby grows up to be a happy toddler and his/her social skills improve over those babies that grew up without listening to songs.
