Читать книгу Zero to Five - Tracy Cutchlow - Страница 12

Sing or read to your belly

Newborns can recognize a song or story they heard in the womb.

In a quiet place, pregnant women read a three-minute story excerpted from The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss. The women read out loud twice a day for the last six weeks of pregnancy.

After the babies were born, researchers gave them pacifiers attached to machines that could measure their sucking. Stronger sucking triggered audio of their mother reading the story. Weaker sucking triggered audio of her reading an unfamiliar story. The newborns sucked more strongly. They wanted to hear their story! (Or, at least, its familiar rhythms and intonations.)

Your baby, too, likely will find familiar words or songs to be soothing. You can try reciting them as soon as baby arrives.

While you’re still pregnant, don’t bother reciting anything to baby until your third trimester. Before that, baby can’t hear you.

BILLIONS OF BERRIES FOR BLACKBERRY JAMBLE

My husband read Jamberry, by Bruce Degen, each night to my belly in the last couple months of my pregnancy. Turns out baby can’t really hear dad’s voice before birth. (We didn’t know!) Mom’s voice—resonating through and amplified by her body—is what baby can hear over the din of whooshes, sloshes, gurgles, and heartbeats in the womb. Still, my husband’s reading provided a lovely bonding time for us. And the book became a favorite bedtime story for baby.

Which song will you sing? Which book will you read?