The importance of music for babies can be bigger than you think. Music can help your baby’s growth in every possible way. The power of music is beyond words. A musical environment contributes to a child’s sensory and cognitive development. It means your kid is exposed to different tastes, culture, smell, texture, and sounds. Music helps the body and mind to work together. It ignites intellectual, social, emotional, motor language, and overall literacy development in a child. It may be a simple lullaby or structured music class, anything related to music plays a huge role in a child’s development.
Music might be soothing to babies even before they are born. Instead of keeping earphones on your belly; try speaking or singing to your child. Babies have the ability to recognize their mother’s voice when they are in the womb.
Doctors say simple tunes are best for the babies or you can listen to anything that helps you relax. There are many playlists online curated just for pregnant woman. But, make sure the volumes are low. Doctors don’t recommend earphones as the sound from it is very loud by the time it reaches your baby. Just because your baby can listen, it doesn’t mean you start teaching him things in the womb itself. Brain development happens only after birth. Not just music, you can take up any activity that you enjoy and helps you relax, it will have a positive effect on your baby.
Babies understand rhythm and move to the beats of music from a very early stage. Music is meant to touch every human being. Apart from soothing, music provides cognitive support that helps the development of the child. The reasons mentioned below are the top benefits of introducing music to children.
When your child is introduced to different types of music, it creates more pathways between the cells in their brain. This effect can be boosted more by combining music with dancing or simple body movements.
Toddlers usually calm down with a lullaby or a song. It even makes them more active. You can try this by using music to indicate sleep time, meal time, and nap time.
Though your baby might not understand words in a song or rhyme, he will gradually develop the understanding through storytelling in a song. To help your child learn more words and identify stories in a rhyme, try inserting his name in some line of the poem. For example, in the rhyme, ‘Rain, Rain go away’, you can insert your baby’s name instead of little Johnny.
From an early stage, babies can identify the difference between different types of sounds. Just after few days of birth, the baby will be able to identify mother’s voice from other sounds. If you give more exposure to music, the baby will be able to decode sounds, words, and identify different sound patterns.
If you notice your child tries to dance, move, or smile to a certain piece of music. Even though at that age he wouldn’t understand the lyrics, he can react to a certain rhythm of music. Music helps in developing his motor skills by encouraging him to move. Your toddler may jump up and down if the music is entertaining; this helps in developing and strengthening his muscles.
Music has a great positive effect on babies and children. It helps in their mental and physical development. Music helps in activating neural pathways responsible for many skills in your baby. It even boosts creativity and spatial intelligence. We have mentioned few fields of learning and let’s see how music helps in each field.
It is an ability to understand the visual world and comprehend three-dimensional shapes and figures. It is a primary function of the brain that helps in solving maps and looking at maps. A study in California showed that children who were given piano lessons had 34% more chance of solving a puzzle.
Linguistic development and music have a close connection. This skill requires the understanding of voices and similar sounds. Music contributes greatly towards it. Music helps to sharpen your child’s auditory memory and the ability to decode the things he listens to.
A research conducted in Hungary showed that children who were given music lessons scored higher grades than children who had no music lessons.
Mathematics and music are partly related, music helps children to understand mathematical concepts. As a result, kids with music background have an easy understanding of mathematics.
Classical music boosts baby’s ability to detect emotions and moods in others.
Music gives significance to learning process and helps remember it.