Lullabies should be every mother's secret weapon

A new study has found that babies respond well to lullabies

SINGING a nursery rhyme or lullaby to a baby really does work, according to new research.

 

A study reveals that babies remain calm twice as long when listening to a song, which they didn't even know, as they did when listening to speech.

The study at the University of Montreal involved 30 healthy infants aged between six and nine months.

The researchers took a variety of measures to ensure the children's reaction to the music was not influenced by other factors, such as sensitivity to their mother's voice.

 



Curiously the language of the lullaby isn't important



Babies were sung songs in a familiar language of French or an unfamiliar one of Turkish.

When listening to a song, babies were calm for about nine minutes, compared to four minutes when spoken to.

Lead author Marieve Corbeil said: "The lack of significant distinction between the two types of speech came as a surprise to us.

 

Babies were played lullabies in different languages and were calmed by both

Our findings leave little doubt about the efficacy of singing nursery rhymes for maintaining infants' composure for extended periods.

"Even in the relatively sterile environment of the testing room-black walls, dim illumination, no toys, and no human visual or tactile stimulation-the sound of a woman singing prolonged infants' positive or neutral states and inhibited distress."

"While infants listened to the Turkish play song for roughly nine minutes before meeting the cry-face criterion, it was six minutes for the play song in French, a language with which they were very familiar," Ms Corbeil added.

 

"These findings speak to the intrinsic importance of music, and of nursery rhymes in particular, which appeal to our desire for simplicity, and repetition."

The researchers said the findings were important because mothers, particularly those in western countries, speak much more often than they sing to their children, missing out on the emotion-regulatory properties of singing.

 

The researchers believe that singing could be particularly useful for parents who struggle to care for their babies or are challenged by adverse socio-economic or emotional circumstances.

Professor Isabelle Peretz, of the university's Centre for Research on Brain, Music and Language, said: "Many studies have looked at how singing and speech affect infants' attention, but we wanted to know how they affect a baby's emotional self-control.

"Emotional self-control is obviously not developed in infants, and we believe singing helps babies and children develop this capacity."