3 Ways to Incorporate Music Into You Toddler's Day
From a young age, Kai has been mesmerized by music. Whenever she was a infant and often inconsolable, a simple song or lullaby would capture her attention and noticeably change her mood. We loved seeing her eye light up when her favorite songs came on or the way her little arms wiggled when she was trying to dance. My husband and I are by no means musicians but we wanted to find ways to better incorporate music into our toddler's daily activity. Here are a few tips that worked for us!
1. Songs for every day activity and get moving!
Early on, we created little songs for new activities to naturally ease Kai's mood. We have a silly song for changing diapers, a "jumping on the bed" song for getting ready for our bath routine and a teeth brushing song too. We also sing "you are my sunshine" every night to signal sleep. Kai is at the age now where she recognizes the songs and starts singing them back to us while we are doing the activity together. It's a wonderful bounding experience and makes an every day "chore" fun! It's also great to get them moving with music. Sing songs that have a hand gesture as a part of the song such as "twinkle twinkle" or "open shut them". This gets their motor skills involved and makes it even more of a fun activity!
2. Have instruments around
I promise my husband and I are not world famous musicians. Kevin has a acoustic guitar laying around the house as well an an ukulele. We let Kai explore those instruments by hearing and touching. She loved the guitar so much we even got her own baby sized guitar to play along. No spare instruments? Every day containers and tools can be made into makeshift instruments. Kai responded really well to the excitement and encouragement.
3. Play songs you love. Beetles is huge for us
If you guys watch our Instagram Stories, you know Kai's favorite song is "Don't Let Me Down" by the Beetles. We started playing her a Beetles playlist in the car at as an infant and she simple became attached to it. Children model their musical experience after ours so play music in the background during play time or anytime is a great idea!
4. Easy access to music in every room
Kai started requesting her favorite songs even when we are out of the car. We wanted to find a bluetooth player that was child friendly and rejoiced when we discovered the SoundBub by WavHello. We wanted a easily portable device that was safe for Kai to handle too. The SoundBub portable Bluetooth speaker and white noise machine does just that! It comes in an variety of cute designs (we chose Bella the Bunny) made of chew-safe materials with a soft, padded cover. It easily pairs to any phone or bluetooth enabled device. The sound quality is excellent and Kai was so excited to be able to cary her favorite songs in one hand from room to room. The SoundBub is also a white noise machine which makes falling asleep much easier on the go! It has a 30-60-90 minute timer or a continuous play mode. I love how easily I can operate it with just one hand. The center speaker button is Kai's favorite thing to push to change the white noise sounds. Wavhello also has a free VoiceShare app which allows you to record stories, messages and lullabies for your little one. Having something so easily portable and especially designed for kids makes taking music into every room so much easier for us. You should see the way Kai wiggles her little body while holding her SoundBub! It's the cutest thing!
Music is our common language! Let's make it an every day part of our kid's lives!
