From the time he is born, sing simple songs, nursery rhymes, and listen to music with your baby. These are powerful ways to help your baby begin to develop language and memory skills, and start to prepare him to read. 

 

Listening to classical music, like music by Mozart, Bach or Beethoven has been shown to help a baby learn to understand the difference between similar sounds, and to remember what he is hearing. Just as it encourages language development, music stimulates your baby to pay extra attention to what he is hearing. Developing these skills will be helpful to him in being ready to learn in school. 

  

Have even more fun with your baby by:

  • Using your hands and fingers to act out the songs.
  • Smiling while you sing and change your facial expressions to fit the song or rhyme. 
Brain Science for Your Baby

 

It seems that babies come into the world ready to listen to music! At McMaster University in Canada Dr. Laurel Trainor studies how infants respond to sound at the Institute for Music and the Mind. In her research lab, babies can suck on something to control which sounds they get to hear. 

 

Dr. Trainor has found that infants prefer happy voices over angry voices. Infants also prefer singing with lots of repetition that is high in pitch, slow in tempo, and with a loving tone of voice. And your voice is better than the radio. So play music and sing! Singing also is a great way to play with words and rhymes and to build your baby's memory!  
A Baby Buffer Prescription for Your Baby

If you play a musical instrument, practice near your baby, so he can benefit from your music-making.
 
Loud music can damage your baby's hearing, so keep the volume at a low or medium-loud level.
 
When you sing to your baby, he is not only more interested in what you're saying, but he can more easily understand your mood. Singing to your baby encourages his brain to make connections between the sounds, your moods and what the words mean.
 
Listen to classical music symphonies (Try Beethoven, Bach or Mozart) with your baby to improve your baby's ability to spatial relationships, such as the round peg and the round hole.  This is important as he learns to recognize the difference between objects and how they interact.

A baby Buffer Prescription for You   

 

 

Children three months and older use music as a tool to remember activities. Make use of this information by singing specific songs during different activities-a soft song each night before bed and a song about the sunrise each morning, for example. Choose another song to sing before dinner and one to sing while bathing your baby.


By repeating the song and activities pair each day, your child will have a much easier time with transitions (which makes life easier for you, too!) throughout the day while learning to appreciate music 

 

 

 

 

 



 

What Your Baby Can Do - Developmental Milestones 

 

Your baby will love being held and touched by you from the very beginning, this is the beginning of your relationship with your baby. Click on the links below to find out what your baby should be able to do:

  
Gene's Research Tip!

What changes the brain? Could reading to your child help brain development?Well, a study published in the journal Brain Connectivity, looked at brain activity with functional MRI scans for 19 consecutive days, in adults who read a novel in the first 10 days of the study.

The brain areas affected during and after finishing the book were compared. Results showed that certain areas of the brain that were activated while reading the book, continued to be active for at least several days later, as if the information absorbed had an impact on brain functioning. Read more 
Baby Buffer Blog
Written by Jessica Oeth Schuttler, Ph.D. 

I am so excited to be a "guest" of Baby Buffer and share in all the great things this group is doing!

 

I recently had a dear friend of mine ask for my mom-psychologist opinion about some gift ideas for his sweet niece for her first Christmas. He had some great ideas - starting a savings account and some cute yet practical clothes. He asked what I thought about books as a gift for a wee one (9 month old) who wasn't yet reading. Here was my response:

 

I am A HUGE PROPONENT OF BOOKS as a gift at any age as both mom and psychologist. Right now, your little one could totally love looking at a board book or soft book (one with cloth or squishy pages), and a bonus is that they would be safe to go in her mouth (which lots of things do at that age).  Read the full blog here

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