Singing to babies is a powerful way to boost their mood

Singing to a baby isn’t just a way to pass the time – it can have real benefits for your infant’s mood. Many parents find themselves humming a tune or softly singing a lullaby without even thinking.

Across cultures, singing to babies seems to come naturally. New research confirms that this simple habit could be doing more than just entertaining your little one – it could be improving their overall well-being.

Scientists at Yale University’s Child Study Center recently explored this idea in a study published in the journal Child Development.

Their work shows that singing is not only easy and accessible, but also a powerful tool for boosting infant mood. Importantly, a happier baby can mean better quality of life for the entire family.

Singing as therapy for babies

“Singing is something that anyone can do, and most families are already doing,” said Eun Cho, a postdoctoral researcher and co-first author of the study. “We show that this simple practice can lead to real health benefits for babies.”

Rather than focusing on complicated or costly interventions, the researchers wanted to look at something simple and practical.

“We don’t always need to be focusing on expensive, complicated interventions when there are others that are just as effective and easy to adopt,” added Lidya Yurdum, a PhD student at the University of Amsterdam and co-first author, who is also affiliated with Yale’s Child Study Center.

How singing changed the routine

The team studied 110 parents and their babies, most under four months old. Parents were divided into two groups.

One group was given tools to increase the time they spent singing – new songs, karaoke-style instructional videos, baby-friendly songbooks, and weekly newsletters packed with ideas for weaving music into everyday life.

For four weeks, parents answered daily surveys on their smartphones. The surveys asked about their baby’s mood, fussiness, how much time they spent soothing their baby, their own mood, and how often they used music with their child.

The results were clear. Parents sang more often, and not because they were told when or how to sing. “When you ask parents to sing more and provide them with very basic tools to help them in that journey, it’s something that comes very naturally to them,” said Yurdum.

Parents naturally turn to singing

Samuel Mehr is an adjunct associate professor at the Child Study Center and director of The Music Lab.

Interestingly, parents gravitated toward singing when their babies were fussy. “We didn’t say to parents, ‘We think you should sing to your baby when she’s fussy,’ but that’s what they did,” said Mehr.

“Parents intuitively gravitate toward music as a tool for managing infants’ emotions, because they quickly learn how effective singing is at calming a fussy baby.”

Happier babies, healthier families

The impact was not just immediate. Babies whose parents sang more often were generally rated as having better moods overall. It wasn’t just that music soothed a crying baby in the moment – the general mood of the infants improved over the weeks.

While the study did not find a significant effect on parents’ moods in the short term, Mehr noted a potential ripple effect.

“Every parent knows that the mood of an infant affects everyone around that infant,” said Mehr. “If improvements to infant mood persist over time, they may well generalize to other health outcomes.”

Further research on singing to babies

The researchers believe this might be just the beginning. Yurdum pointed out that even before the study, the families involved were already fairly musical.

“Despite that, and despite only four weeks of the intervention, we saw benefits. That suggests that the strength of singing to your babies would likely be even stronger in a family that does not already rely on music as a way of soothing their infants,” said Yurdum.

The Child Study Center team has launched a follow-up project called “Together We Grow.” This new study will look at the effects of singing over a longer period – eight months – and examine whether music can have broader benefits like improved sleep or reduced parental stress and postpartum depression.

A universal phenomenon

Music has always had a special place in human culture, and previous research from The Music Lab shows that infant-directed music is a universal phenomenon. Humans can even recognize whether a song is a lullaby or a dance song in unfamiliar languages and cultures.

Mehr believes that these findings are tied to a fundamental role of music in human communication.

“Our understanding of the evolutionary functions of music points to a role of music in communication,” he said. “Parents send babies a clear signal in their lullabies: I’m close by, I hear you, I’m looking out for you – so things can’t be all that bad.”

The full study was published in the journal Child Development.

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