Cranky Baby? Don't Talk, Singing Will Work Better

While it's comforting to see babies smiling, these little ones also get tired. They cry and get cranky and parents have to deal with these scenarios, perhaps more often than one expects. But, did you know that there's a way to soothe children who are in their bad disposition?

A new study suggested that singing keeps babies calm longer than talking, U.S. News reported. Maybe some parents already practice this, but for those who don't maybe it is high time to try it.

Bringing on noise is among the things that babies find comforting. Perhaps, because while in the womb, they hear their moms beating heart, the rush of blood, and stomach gurgling. For this reason, silence isn't golden to newborns as Parents.com put it.

The report suggested several options to bring noise that will comfort the young one like turning on a fan, vacuuming up, hushing with a "shush," and trying white noise.

U.S News reported researchers learned that infants remained calm for an average of nine minutes when listening to singing, even if it wasn't their language. The sample involved 30 infants between 6 to 9 months.

On the other hand, baby talk only calms the babies for just over four minutes. As a matter of fact, researchers from the University of Montreal revealed that a normal adult conversation has indeed brought comfort to the babies but only lasted for four minutes.

"Many studies have looked at how singing and speech affect infants' attention, but we wanted to know how they affect a baby's emotional self-control," said Isabelle Peretz, a psychology professor at the Center for Research on Brain, Music and Language in a university news release.

"Emotional self-control is obviously not developed in infants, and we believe singing helps babies and children develop this capacity," Peretz added.

The study revealed that people are naturally responsive to music. In fact, researchers disclosed that older children and adults show their fondness to sound by tapping their feet, nodding their head, strumming their fingers or drumming.

"Infants do not synchronize their external behavior with the music, either because they lack the requisite physical or mental ability," Peretz said. "Part of our study was to determine if they have the mental ability. Our finding shows that the babies did get carried away by the music, which suggests they do have the mental capacity to be 'entrained.'"

"Although infant distress signals typically prompt parental comforting interventions, they induce frustration and anger in some at-risk parents, leading to insensitive responding and, in the worst cases, to infant neglect or abuse," Peretz added. She suggests that the study might lead to new ways in preventing child abuse.

The study was published in the journal of Infancy.