Does Music Help your Baby Sleep Better?

2 weeks baby sleeping — Baby Sleeping – Was she scratching her head?

For us parents with eczema children, we know how difficult it is for our children to have a good night’s sleep. A lack of sleep negatively affects our children’s development and if music can help our children sleep better, why not? For me, I have been singing “ABC Song” and “Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars” to my baby Marcie followed by playing the same compilation of Christian baby songs since birth. Marcie seems to sleep better with the music and her infant care teachers also commented that she looked visibly calmer when the music was played during her nap time. While there is no definitive research done on how music affects baby’s sleep, I found some good reasons for playing music to your child during bedtime:

1. We all know that music affects our mood and reduces stress (provided you are not listening to noisy music that stresses you out). As stress is a fairly common trigger for eczema, it is good to listen to music that relaxes your child.

2. There are several testimonies given by parents and sleep therapists that children sleep better with music and also can fall back asleep at night when music is on.

3. Bringing the familiar music on a holiday trip may help your child sleep better in a new place.

4. Research suggests that plant flourish better with classical music than noisy rock/punk music.

While music seems to be all good, do take care in your choice of songs; too simulating music is not recommended. Repetitive and simple music is best, and must be something that you can listen to every night. Some even recommended listening to nature sounds ‘white noise’ such as waterfall and raindrops that mimic the rhythms in the mother’s womb.

A side note

If you just google “music baby sleep”, you will find MANY websites offering music that will put your baby to sleep (this website says that hospitals are testing out their CDs). I haven’t purchased any of such CDs as I prefer to have my baby listen to Christian music and so far it has worked great for my sleep too. I suggest that we as parents relax a little, listen to some music and whatever makes us happy and sleepy may do the same for our children.