Here’s How Music Can Help Your Baby or Toddler to Learn

There comes a time in most parents’ lives when you find yourself in a place so outside your comfort zone – one not taught in any pre-natal classes. You find yourself in a baby music class.

For some the baby music class (whatever preference or brand you choose to go with, likelihood if it’s your first baby, you’ll attend several) is a place of joy – it’s been your lifelong dream to be in a room where it’s not just cool, but positively encouraged to sing out as loud as your heart desires. But for many people, it can be an uncomfortable place, mumbling words it’s just assumed you know to a million nursery rhymes while getting the hand actions repeatedly wrong. Oh, and if you’re there with a young baby, chances are you’ll miss the majority of the class when the baby does a poo-nami or falls asleep (despite the fact you’d spent the last two hours trying to get them to sleep before the class.

Experts Featured in This Article

Jessica Rolph is CEO and co-founder of Lovevery, a company focused on healthy brain development for children under five.

It can find yourself, by the time you get home, wondering if it’s all really worth it? Well, rest assured, baby and toddler development experts say music can be important for young children, for lots of reasons.

With that in mind – and if you’d rather take the many verses of Wheels on the Bus while safely at home – renowned toy company Lovevery have launched The Music Set (available from 17 October), a musical version of their award-winning play kits, containing everything from jingle bracelets to concertinas. Ahead of the launch we asked Lovevry CEO Jessica Rolph to explain why music can be so beneficial to small children.

How Can Music Help Children’s Learning and Wellbeing?

School readiness: “Early exposure to music has been shown to improve many school readiness skills like language, math, and executive function,” says Rolph. “Studies show that playing music can also boost reasoning skills, as your child learns to translate abstract ideas-like notes on a sheet of music-into sounds, rhythms, and songs.”

Behaviour: “Engaging with music may also help preschoolers think before they act,” adds Rolph. “Following directions is a big part of music-your child learns to start and stop, play loudly or quietly, and make the right sound by hitting this note and not that one. This musical play can help strengthen your child’s inhibition-an executive function that includes skills like impulse control and emotional regulation.”

Movement: “And music gets children moving!” says Rolph. “Music gives them a chance to practice both gross motor control and proprioception – the understanding of where their body is in space.”

Language: “Your child engages with early language skills every time you read them a bedtime story or point out words when you go about your day. Look for similar ways to incorporate music.”

Rhiannon Evans is the interim content director at PS UK. Rhiannon has been a journalist for 17 years, starting at local newspapers before moving to work for Heat magazine and Grazia. As a senior editor at Grazia, she helped launch parenting brand The Juggle, worked across brand partnerships, and launched the “Grazia Life Advice” podcast. An NCE-qualified journalist (yes, with a 120-words-per-minute shorthand), she has written for The Guardian, Vice and Refinery29.