Tips For Soothing Your Baby With Music, From A Music Therapist

IRA FLATOW: If you’re a parent, you’ve probably heard that playing music is good for your baby’s brain development. But I think that’s where most people’s knowledge about the subject, well, it sort of ends there. Will cuing up a lullaby playlist get the job done?

And how can you tell if it’s all just too much for the baby? Here to help us is Sarah Nolan, a board certified music therapist and neonatal intensive care unit music therapist at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. Welcome to Science Friday.

SARAH NOLAN: Hi. Thanks for having me.

IRA FLATOW: Sarah, you published recommendations recently about the best ways to think about playing music for your baby. I do want to get to those, but let’s first talk about why is music important to play for babies as they grow up. Is this sort of a medical tool?

SARAH NOLAN: Yeah, you’re right. I think that music is something that we have that’s so accessible to everybody. And so it’s obvious that we want to share that with our children as they grow up, right? I think the important part is that we think of the baby’s development.

And so in sharing that music with our babies, we’re still thinking about the learning opportunities. We’re still thinking about how can we share this music to them but still use this as a way for them to learn something to help them develop. So usually we’ll give them things to touch, things to look at, and that’s part of their brain development. And so really using the music is, for us, a way for them to learn.

IRA FLATOW: All right. So what common misconceptions do you see parents making when they play music for their babies? Is it how long they’re playing it, when they’re playing it? Tell us about that.

SARAH NOLAN: Yeah, I think what ends up happening sometimes is a parent might say, oh, my baby loves music. I play it for them all day, or he loves listening to this song over and over and over again. And I’ll often remind them and tell them, well, the baby can’t tell you verbally, right, so you need to look at signs from their body or how they’re responding that they’re actually, quote, unquote, “enjoying this music.”

These are some signs that they’re telling us that they like it, and these are signs that they’re telling us that they’re actually becoming overstimulated. The length of music can also be somewhat of a misconception because a lot of times we’ll play a playlist, and we just leave it there. And then we walk away, and we say, oh, they’ve enjoyed it. But then how could we really tell if we’re not watching them the entire time? And so that might actually not be the most beneficial for the baby.

IRA FLATOW: Is there a sweet spot? Is there an ideal length of time for them to listen because I know babies have a pretty short attention span, don’t they?

SARAH NOLAN: Yes. That’s a huge important thing to remember is the attention span of babies. When a baby is listening to a song or music for about 30 to 45 minutes, after that general period, they’re no longer really paying attention to that music. And so it just really becomes noise.

So at that point, we have to remember is there still an opportunity for learning here. Is my baby still learning anything or is he just listening to the sound continuing in the background? That’s really not doing anything for them anymore. And so the 30 to 45 minutes at a time is usually what’s recommended. So those are things that we need to remember.

IRA FLATOW: Are there’s actual signs you can see that your baby makes that show that it’s no longer interested?

SARAH NOLAN: Totally, generally speaking, let’s say if they’re yawning excessively, obviously yawning is a sign that maybe a baby is tired or sleepy. But if they’re excessively yawning but they can’t fall asleep, it might be a sign that the stimulation from the music is actually keeping them awake, as opposed to helping them fall asleep.

IRA FLATOW: Interesting. I know you see babies all day in the hospital. Tell us what you’ve learned about the kinds of music that parents would find helpful to play and how the babies react to that.

SARAH NOLAN: Right. So I specifically work in our NICCU, which at Children’s Hospital stands for the Neonate and Infant Critical Care Unit. So we see a lot of very, very sick babies that can range in age from a premature baby, who’s born way too early, all the way up to maybe a 10 or 11-month-old that just has a lot of medical issues. Now, we always want to ask parents, what are songs or types of music that you enjoy as a family because, more often than not, this baby can hear what mom was listening to while she was pregnant with the baby.

And we always want to bring a sense of familiarity to the space. And so if a parent enjoys rock music, then we’ll try our best to use rock music. The only thing that’s going to change in my work is how I deliver that music.

So with babies, they prefer songs that are predictable. They prefer songs that are simple. And so I might have to simplify, let’s say, a melody of a song, or I change the way that I play it based off of what’s appropriate for a baby.

So I might not play in full volume. I might not play full chords. I might just kind of do a little bit of light plucking on the guitar. And so it’s really more important to remember the specific elements of music that make it appropriate for a baby, so the simplicity, the volume, the predictability of the song.

IRA FLATOW: Do you have a favorite guitar melody you like to play for your kids?

SARAH NOLAN: Well, my favorite specifically is I love “You Are My Sunshine.” It’s also really easy for me to change the lyrics, so that’s something that we do a lot with parents. Why don’t we add your baby’s name into the song?

What are some things that you want to tell your baby? So the melody stays the same, but it’s more familiar, and it’s more personal to the parent. I’m here to empower parents that they can do some of these things at home, which is really kind of the whole point of this education that we’re trying to do for them.

IRA FLATOW: Thank you, Sarah, for taking time and sharing what you do with us.

SARAH NOLAN: Thank you so much.

IRA FLATOW: Sarah Nolan, a neonatal intensive care unit music therapist at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, part of the Mark Taper and Johnny Mercer Artists Program.

Copyright © 2025 Science Friday Initiative. All rights reserved. Science Friday transcripts are produced on a tight deadline by 3Play Media. Fidelity to the original aired/published audio or video file might vary, and text might be updated or amended in the future. For the authoritative record of Science Friday’s programming, please visit the original aired/published recording. For terms of use and more information, visit our policies pages at http://www.sciencefriday.com/about/policies/