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Between the 23 and 27 weeks of pregnancy, a baby starts hearing the different sounds. The clearest and significant sound that a baby can hear is his mother’s heartbeat. But as the weeks pass, he starts responding to the sounds outside the womb too. You can start reading to your baby in the womb or play music and you never know he may respond. Reading a good book to your baby can be beneficial for your baby. It stimulates emotions in a baby and helps him react to different stimuli. It also prepares a baby for the life after his birth.
Why Is It Essential to Read to Your Baby
The stories you read to your baby evoke certain emotions in him. The rhyming lines and the lullabies develop a sense of voice modulation too from an early stage. Many aspects also indicate that reading helps babies to pick up newer words for their vocabulary pretty early in life and make it easier for them to understand the meaning easily. However, when a baby hears the voice in the womb, he becomes alert and responds to it. If you read to your baby daily, he will recognize your voice once he’s out in the real world and this will develop the bond between you and your baby.
When Should You Start Reading to Your Baby in the Womb
Reading is an activity that doesn’t need a perfect time to start with. However, if you are specifically picking out music and books to read to your child, it is necessary to know the right time to begin with them as well.
The initial months of the baby are usually surrounded by getting used to the womb and figuring out the surroundings. Over time, as the baby gets into the groove of staying within the uterus and becomes comfortable with it, he begins to pick up sounds from outside as well as the mother’s heartbeat. This makes it easier for him to listen to the songs you hum and the words you speak.
Therefore, as you inch closer to completing 23 weeks of your pregnancy towards finishing up the second trimester, your little one will be able to react to your voice and any other actions easily. All of these phases are where the cognitive development of a child is also proceeding rapidly. Enhancing that by listening to the right music and reading stories that benefit him, can work wonders in his development.
Some Benefits of Reading to Your Unborn Baby
While figuring out the things to read to a baby in the womb, it is important to know how your activities are going to benefit the little one. Everything that you do, right from eating to speaking to exercising, affects the baby in one way or the other. The aural perception is so strong that most babies are able to develop an affinity for the native language over any other even without understanding it fully.
- Pregnancy is not just a stressful time for the mother but also for the baby. The baby undergoes a fluctuation in emotions and can feel overwhelmed at times. Indulging in some nice reading activity can help you calm down and your soothing voice can also control the heart rate of your anxious baby and help him relax in your womb.
- A baby’s bond with his mother develops right from the time he is in the womb. Skin-to-skin contact has its own strengths, which makes the bond stronger once the child is born, but the bond is truly formed from all the activities that the mother indulges in when the little one is inside her. Being constantly aware of the mother’s voice helps the baby develop trust for it, which is why most babies stop crying after they hear the mother’s voice. If a particular music is played regularly, the baby can recognise it pretty well, too. Playing it again once the baby is out can also strengthen the bond yet again. And this isn’t simply restricted to the mother. If the partner reads a story to the child, the baby will begin to recognize that voice too.
- As your baby grows in your womb, his brain development is still in progress and the neural connections form rapidly. Listening to the mother’s voice or stories help strengthen those connections. And these can help him recall when he hears them again after birth. Repetition is a proven form of memorization and when the seeds are sown early in life right from the womb, it develops memory and concentration power in babies.
What Stories to Read to a Baby in the Womb
If you are an avid reader, you might be enjoying reading everything under the Sun. From romantic novels to murder mysteries to sci-fiction. But you can’t read these to your little baby, be it if he is the womb or outside. If you are struggling to figure out what kind of stories would suit your baby the best, take a simple stroll in the children’s section of any bookstore.
Remember the movie Baby’s Day Out? Books similar to those where a baby goes around the world and visits different places can help instil a feeling of excitement and joy within the little one indirectly. Books that are filled with small poems, focusing on the rhyme scheme, can develop his tendency to recognize sounds and word formations. Opt for reading fantasy stories, that can enrich his imagination. Doctor Seuss, as well as Roald Dahl’s books, are meant for children, but that doesn’t mean you have to wait for your child to grow up. Go ahead and read these books to your little one in the womb. The way you read out a story to your child also matters. So, opt for rhyming stories and try to modulate your voice wherever needed.
Once you know what to read for your baby in the womb, don’t stop there. Combine the reading activity with listening to music or humming some songs of your own. Everything that a baby hears is going to work to his benefit and make him a lovely individual in every way possible.
