The Benefits of Music for Babies & Toddlers

The Benefits of Music

Introducing your baby to music and sounds is an easy and enjoyable way to interact with your baby in their first year and can help set the stage for lifelong musical development. From birth, we instinctively use music to calm and soothe our babies, to express love and joy and to engage with them. Playing together with music encourages brain development in your baby and boosts their language and social skills. It can also brighten not just your baby’s mood but yours too; as they say, music is the key to happiness and fills our soul with joy!

Studies have found that musical experiences in childhood can accelerate brain development, particularly in areas of language and reading skills and learning to play an instrument can improve mathematical learning!

Music ignites all areas of child development and skills for school readiness and helps the body and the mind work together. Exposing your child to music during early development helps them learn the sounds and meanings of words, whilst dancing to music helps children build motor skills and a sense of rhythm while allowing them to practice self-expression.

Babies and music: Babies recognise the melody of a song long before they understand the words. Quiet background music (like classical music) can be soothing for infants, especially when it’s nap/bedtime. Sing simple, short songs to your baby, like nursery rhymes or even try making up your own by singing one or two lines about activities that you are doing, e.g. nappy time, cuddle time, bath time.

Introduce instruments with your baby and sing and dance along to your favourite nursery rhymes or songs, eventually as your baby grows, they will become more responsive and even join in with you.

Toddlers and music: Toddlers love to dance and move to music. The key to toddler music is repetition, which encourages language and strengthens memory skills. Let your toddler reproduce rhythms by clapping their hands or by banging and tapping objects. My toddler loves shaking a maraca whilst dancing to our favourite songs he also loves when we sing silly songs together!

This is a good stage to start exploring various tempos and sounds with instruments. Introduce words such as fast, slow, loud, quiet, stop, go and encourage your toddler to do these actions

There are so many activities you can explore with your little one to introduce and enjoy the benefits of music, even if it’s just dancing around and being silly – your little one will still love it.

Music in an important part of childhood development, which is why I stock a range of musical instruments and toys to inspire even the youngest of musical artists.

View the collection here:

https://www.thelittlesensorybox.com/collections/musical-instruments

So, turn up the tunes and enjoy music with your little ones. 

Dee

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