Serenading Your Baby

The hubster jokingly claims Lil One's first words will come out in a song. Furthermore, he says that on his first day of preschool the teacher will ask Lil One his name and he will respond in a singing voice,

"My name is Shnookums, Ter-bear, Papoose, Lil Dou-dou (and all the other nicknames I have for him)."

Any Haitian can attest that we love to sing and hum in general. It's one of those characteristics that a non-Haitians may observe upon watching us. My songs are sometimes made up, sometimes the usual lullabies, or sometimes I use singing as a tool to teach something. Lil Man knew his ABCs, numbers 1-20 and months of the year by the time he was 2 because I always sang them to him.

I sing to my baby, talk to my baby, make funny faces and sounds to him. Lil Man joins in with me. It's so cute to see him singing to his baby brother. Lil One just loves it! He intently watches our mouths or he'll brighten up in smile while he waves his arms and kicks his legs. Sometimes it's as if he is trying to imitate the sounds he hears and he'll make funny little noises.

Try as he might to avoid it, the hubster has been caught singing to Lil One himself. Yeppers! I caught him singing to the baby in his off key husky voice just yesterday. hehe...All God's children have a place in the chorus, right. Right. I think the tune he was singing was Ole McDonald, but the chorus was changed to "Croc, croc, here and a croc, croc there..." It must have had something to do with the stuffed crocodile in his hand. The hubster swears he wasn't singing. He said he wouldn't want to scare the baby with his voice. He couldn't fool me! Its was definately a song of sorts he was chanting to Lil One.

I have long thought that there must be intellectual and bonding benefits to sing to babies. Have you ever noticed that something is easier to memorized if it's put into a song or rhyme? The same concept must apply to babies when they are learning to talk, I would imagine. Lil One becomes very attentive of our mouth movements and even tries to imitate them. The rhythmic pattern of the singing and the repetition of words must foster some sort of learning for him. I'm pretty sure no matter how on key or off tune the voice, he would enjoy the experience just the same.

I came upon an article on Parent Hood called Serenading Your Baby and it's good to see that I'm not crazy after all. This article basically confirms everything I have always thought about the benefit of singing to your baby.

To quote a portion of the article:

According to Dr. Lise Eliot, a neurobiologist at the Chicago Medical School, the
author of What’s Going on in There?: How the Brain and Mind Develop in the
First Five Years of Life and a mother of three, "Singing to your baby is a
multisensory experience. He or she is not only hearing you, but seeing your lips
move. And, it turns out, young babies are really good at lip reading, at linking
movement to the sound. That’s probably one trick they use in learning to talk.

The article also discusses the bonding relationship that is developed between infant and parent(s). Another very interesting piece of research that I came across was this
video regarding the advantages of talking to your baby. It's quite interesting! I guess this means Lil One will be hearing a lot more of my frivolous songs and harebrained tales as it appears they are doing him good.

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