As a new parent, the first time your gorgeous new baby bundle of joy has a bad day or night can be oh so stressful! I know I’ve been there.
You go through all of the things that normally help your little one settle like making sure they have a dry nappy, are fed well, burped, cuddled, and soothed, and when none of that helps you do it all over again.
Then you try putting your baby down in different sleep spaces hoping that works! But despite all of your efforts, you may have had a baby crying for a few hours by now, and the last thing in the parent tool kit is the old “go for a drive in the car” and sometimes that combination of car noise and motion works, sometimes…but there’s a catch.
The fact is driving with a crying baby and feeling exhausted and stressed is equivalent to driving drunk.
So how do help your baby settle fast in the safety of your home?
Music gives us so much pleasure. Experiences that derive pleasure elicit a hormonal response that helps you relax, enhance mood and provide opportunities for neural pathways to form that are responsive for bonding and nurturing. These are the brain tools that we need to become caring and nurturing adults and it is important that that kind of stimuli happens as early as possible from birth and even before.
Ensuring your baby has the best music experience starts with your choice of music and traditionally lullabies have been a cultural and popular first choice. Lullabies have been part of the human culture for thousands of years and some anthropologists believe them to be the precursor to human language. This means singing is instinctual and a powerful resource for promoting sleep.
In a 2017 study, babies were shown to be more engaged when sung to rather than putting on a recording or music app. Another huge bonus is that babies cry less! The lullaby experience also helps develop hearing pathways that assist with speech development.
Choosing the best lullaby experience
What you find in a good lullaby is rhythm, rhyme and repetition, melody and lyrics with the tempo set to a resting heart rate of around 80 beats per minute. What science tells us is that when you sing to your baby, even before birth, associations are made which affect both mother and baby behaviour. This includes calmer mothers and babies that sleep and feed better, cry less and have less colic. With extensive studies worldwide, lullabying has so many benefits than just talking with your baby. These include stabilizing emotions, decreasing pain, regulating heart rate and breathing, and is often used as a complementary therapy in paediatric hospital settings.
At home lullabying is wonderful for bonding as it regulates both parent and childs’ emotions and has been scientifically demonstrated to synchronize brain patterns between mother and baby. Put simply, you and your baby are filled with love hormones, feel calmer, and have a lowered stress response. This directly helps with relaxation, which precedes sleep.
Lullabying your baby is jam-packed with brain goodness for everyone and you shouldn’t be afraid to try it out. It’s worth noting that your baby doesn’t care what you sound like. You can even ease yourself into singing by starting with some humming and patting to the rhythm of the music. You don’t need to make this a public event, either. Simply turn away from others if you can’t find a place of solitude. We help parents ease into lullabying because many parents feel self-conscious about their singing ability. The truth is your baby doesn’t need you to be able to sing like you’re auditioning for ‘The Voice’. Babies are very happy just to hear you and when you make your voice melodic, as in singing, that’s even better for them.
Keep the melody going…
Nigh Nigh Lullaby allows the lyrics to be easy to sing and then fading away to help babies fall into longer sleep without the need for you to have to keep singing to an overtired baby. This means the same melody acts to guide your baby into a deeper sleep and supports parents musically to sing at any point in the long play, whenever your baby needs a little more settling support.
The Nigh Nigh difference is its ability to give families a unique musical sleep experience that encompasses singing our sleep song and then allowing you to transition from singing while our instrumental guides your baby into deeper and extended sleep. If you have tried everything, give nigh nigh lullaby, a go…it’s a game-changer!