(Image Credit: Motherly)
While bringing up our babies and toddlers, most of us instinctively love to sing them songs and use music to keep them entertained or help them learn new things. This is a timeless trend that goes as far back as we can remember, and one that will no doubt stick around long into the future.
But even though we know music is a great tool for nurturing babies and toddlers, what exactly are the benefits of exposing our little ones to music such as nursery rhymes and other children’s songs? What makes listening and singing along to tunes such a valuable element in the formative years of a child?
Let’s look at just a handful of the important ones…
1. Boosts their physical development
The years a child spends as a baby through to preschool involves developing and sharpening their basic five senses, which is why music comes in as one of the most important stimuli alongside toys, food, and art during these years.
Play a catchy and groovy kid’s song and watch your baby engaging his/her motor skills. (Image Credit: Wallpaperflare)
By introducing music such as lullabies, nursery rhymes, and other children’s songs into your baby’s life, you’re basically helping them fine-tune their hearing skills and their ability to perceive relationships between sounds and physical objects, as well as engage their vocal cords as they try to follow along to the lyrics. This is especially true with nursery rhymes that are catchy and that include a large range of notes or pronunciations, especially sound effects like mimicking animal noises.
Also, who can forget dancing? If you want your baby to get moving, an upbeat song almost never fails to get them grooving and shaking to the beat!
2. Makes the brain work
It’s also unsurprising that exposing a baby to music helps accelerate their logic and creative thinking in powerful ways.
Babies and toddlers are designed to love music by default, so why not use kid’s songs to help them exercise their brain? (Image Credit: Sungglebundl)
Studies have shown that almost all babies are hardwired to be interested in music and to enjoy learning how to sing along to the songs they hear. A child that’s exposed to enough children’s songs with structure (tunes that have a repeating rhythm and arrangement) can quickly learn to grasp concepts such as musical timing and composition while also learning how to form their first words. These eventually lead them to become more comfortable with counting, timing, and forming sounds—something they’ll definitely find useful when entering school.
Songs like Baby Shark and Let It Go from the movie Frozen have been perfect examples of this, and it only gets better the wider variety of songs there are for a child.
3. Music lifts the spirits
One obvious but very underrated benefit of immersing your child with music is the mood lift you get for your baby that can pacify even the fiercest tantrum. It’s well known that certain songs—especially upbeat and cheerful ones—can cause dopamine and serotonin production within the body which greatly help with stress relief, focus, and an overall healthier mental and physical states.
Anyone will tell you that a great song can be a mood booster, so use music to help make your kid’s life a happy and healthy one. (Image Credit: Tim Mossholder)
It’s simply human nature to want to be happy, and by paying close attention to the music you expose your kid to, and you’ll find your home a much livelier and cheerful place for the entire family.
4. Builds closer relationships
And yet another reason music is so great for babies and toddlers is the opportunity it gives to parents to bond with their little ones. Every parent knows deep down that bonding with their children is a challenge due to many factors, so one easy way to overcome this is by having just a little bit of music added into their child’s schedule.
Music is a universal language, so use it to bond with your child through singing and dancing? (Image Credit: Kristina Paukshtite)
Playing a few fun songs during play time is a great chance for a dance session between a baby and parent, or maybe you could regularize sing-along sessions with baby’s favourite lullabies before bedtime. There really isn’t a bad time to play music to your kids if you have the right tunes on hand.
5. Develops personality
Most importantly, being present as a parent should always be a fruitful endeavour and not a laborious one. Knowing how life rarely goes according to plan, your skillset as an involved parent should also include knowing how to adapt and solve when something doesn’t go the way you want it.
For example, you might get caught up with a deadline that you just can’t miss, your kid might just not feel like spending time with you, or you might even find yourself losing your cool and yelling at your kid for doing something really naughty.
Fret not, though. While these things happen and you might find yourself feeling so guilty for failing in the moment, the main thing to remember is that no parent is perfect no matter how much they try.
If you can accept that you’re guaranteed to make some mistakes along the way, it’ll make the whole learning process a much smoother one. If you skipped a day of bonding with your child, be bold enough to apologize to your kid and make amends the next day by not skipping. If you’ve unintentionally lost your temper by raising your voice, take a minute to collect yourself and then explain to your kid why it happened.
Music is great for bringing out a child’s personality. Using different kid’s songs to see what your child likes and doesn’t like will help you understand them much better. (Image Credit: Pixabay
If you’re seeking ways to introduce music and singing into your baby’s life, you should look no further than our line-up of sing-along books that feature some of the most well-known nursery rhymes and kid’s songs from Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore.
For example, the Rasa Sayang Sing-And-Record Children Fun Book (and all our other books within the line-up) gives young readers an outlet to express their inner vocalist while learning traditional Malay kid’s songs and culture through catchy rhyme and repetition.
The sound modules included with all our books ensures fun musical moments where little readers will get the chance to listen, sing, dance, and train their mind and body while having a blast, while also giving parents a chance to get involved whether it be singing, dancing, teaching, or just taking in the music and lyrics alongside their little ones.
To know more about our line of books in detail, head on over to our website here!
