Baby music CDs make great gifts for baby showers

Baby showers are a tradition stemming all the way back to the early 1900s. Clearly, the goal is to "shower" new moms-to-be before they give birth. While times have changed, the tradition hasn’t. Yet now you can be more creative than in the past—instead of giving diapers, clothing and rattles, you can give fun gifts like baby music CDs that offer exciting developmental value.

Back in the day, baby shower gifts were typically homemade and practical. Now gifts are very wide-ranging—while some are still of a practical nature, others are not at all. Some attendees give the best baby toys you can think of! At a baby shower, you’ll see gifts ranging from cribs, bedding, bathing products and other supplies to dolls, books and baby music CDs.

Another reason why musical baby toys make such great gifts is that they are not gender-specific, and many times, parents don’t want to find out the gender, which leads many toward gifts in the yellow color range. Some of the best baby toys tend to be those that either gender can play with through infancy and toddlerhood.

Instead of looking for standard baby blankets, crib and bassinet accessories and items for the mom-to-be’s diaper bag, think about getting them something they will use for years to come. Musical baby toys provide fun, bonding moments for both baby and parents, so really you’re giving a gift to all involved! Listening and playing to children’s songs is a great de-stressor and can make it easy to teach your child about rhythm and movement, as well as vocabulary—and help them improve their memory skills. Plus, baby music DVDs take it to an entirely new level by featuring stimulating visuals with music and songs that help children to associate different words with their appropriate meanings. It’s a great way to help the new parents-to-be get a head start on their baby’s education.

Effects of Music on Babies

Regardless of whether or not your child will be the next Mozart or Beethoven, baby music is an essential part of their education and development. It’s therefore great to get started early with their exposure to music, whether it’s by playing baby music DVDs for them, letting them play with musical baby toys or handing them musical instruments.

As adults, we know that music can uplift our moods and give us energy, as well as calm our nerves and lull us to sleep. Music can evoke emotions, remind us of past experiences or lead us into a meditative state. Baby music can do the same for your child! It can provide nurturing or help create a setting for a binding experience between parent and child. Simply popping one of our baby music DVDs in your DVD player can provide visual stimulation and the chance for parents to educate children about what they see and hear.

Science has proven that there are tons of benefits to incorporating musical baby toys into your plan for your child’s development and education. Through age six, the most significant brain development takes places—this is also a time when music can have substantial influence. It can help with a child’s fine motor skills, which can also encourage their musical inclination—because who knows, you may have your own musical prodigy on your hands. Whether your child sings along with a baby CD or simply dances around, it will improve their vocal, speaking and listening skills, while increasing their vernacular.

Another factor that baby music improves is social skills. When children are younger, they’re less inhibited and not as worried about making errors. There is no “correct” way to sing or dance, though they learn correct ways to do so when they start school. However, toddlers and preschool children can play with each other in “bands” without worrying about hitting wrong notes or striking the incorrect keys on an instrument. This kind of play helps them develop confidence while learning to share and play with others.

Fun baby music toys

Baby music toys are the perfect way to introduce music to your child—and at the earliest ages possible. We already know that babies benefit so much from listening to baby CDs, regardless of the genre of music. The complexity, rhythm and tempos increase activity in the brain and encourage them to move, play and laugh.

Just listening and playing to baby music enhances their creativity and further improves coordination, but as your baby develops control over their hands and gains coordination, a whole new world opens for them, especially when it comes to baby music toys. You can start by letting them play with normal items such as empty boxes or bowls as if they were musical instruments, but why not try out some toys that are specifically designed to enhance the benefits of music and instill a passion for music?

The fun Baby Genius offers doesn’t stop with listening to baby CDs—we offer a wide variety of fun musical baby toys that will keep children busy and entertained for hours on end, while reaping the multitude of benefits music provides. For example, Old McVinko's Musical Farm lets children enjoy exciting role play activities along with six Baby Genius friends. They can watch the chicken lay eggs, feed the animals and milk the cows. When the barn door opens, the Old McVinko song plays, encouraging a ton of laughter and smiles from your infant or toddler.

Another favorite among our baby music toys is DJ's Sing-a-Long Keyboard. Your child can sing along to seven different Baby Genius sing-a-longs or play four different instruments (flute, guitar, saxophone or whistle) to 22 different tunes. A song recording and playback feature allows you to record your child’s masterpiece and play it over and over again! Our All-in-One Musical Band is the perfect way to stimulate your child’s potential for musical inclination. With a Frankie tambourine, two Tempo maracas, a Vinko flute, and a drum with two colorful drumsticks, your little musician can play their favorite instrument and march to their own tune. All-in-one drum storage makes it perfect for when you and your child are on the gol

Baby Music Toys are Fun and Developmental

At Baby Genius, we create amazing baby music CDs and musical baby toys that will entertain your baby or toddler for hours on end. Yet every single one of the toys in our product line do much more than that. Through the use of children’s songs and classical music, we’ve designed an array of products that assist with child development on many different, instrumental levels.

With classical music from composers like Mozart to favorite children’s songs and sing-alongs, you can get your infant or young child’s creative juices flowing while providing them with wide-ranging exposure to the music world. You can pop in one of our baby music CDs and sing to or dance along with your child—an activity that bonds and enhances the connection between you. In addition, baby music helps children to develop early musical inclinations. Since they learn to sing and dance just as easily as they learn to walk and talk, they can learn rhythm and increase their vocabulary through our brand of musical play. Plus, they’ll develop a passion for music that may lead to the development of a talent or hobby that becomes a healthy and important part of their life.

Baby Genius also creates stellar baby music DVDs and musical baby books to help foster creativity, self-expression and confidence, while helping children build social, cognitive and physical skills. By singing along with your child to whichever types of musical baby toys you choose, you’ll help them with comprehension and memory skills—and you’ll have fun together!

Watching the stunning visuals in our baby music DVDs also helps children associate words to their meanings. For example, our Underwater Adventures and Trip to the San Diego Zoo DVDs feature vivid visuals of animals, birds and underwater sea life that will stimulate your child’s mind and teach them the names of animals.

It’s time to get singing, laughing and dancing with your child!

Using children’s songs to brighten routines

Some of the greatest benefits of music can come from a child learning to sing or play children’s songs on an instrument. While an infant may not be quite ready to play scales or learn all the words to a song, there are definitely ways that you can expose your baby, toddler or young child to the wide-ranging benefits of baby music.

A great way to start is to incorporate music throughout your child’s day. Don’t just limit children’s songs to singing lullabies at bedtime! There are so many opportunities to take advantage of music. For example, if you’re trying to teach your child to do chores, than why not sing or play a song during chore time? This will make the actual chore much more fun—almost like a game. You can also integrate music during other routine parts of the day—during mealtime or bathtime, you can pop different baby music CDs in your stereo or mp3 player to make it fun. If your child is currently an infant, you could even play baby music while you’re changing their diaper.

If your child loves cartoons and other children’s programming, why not increase the brain building power of the television set by playing baby music DVDs? They won’t recognize the fact that they’re educational—though they will definitely learn to associate certain words with their appropriate meanings, develop rhythm, improve coordination, and increase their memory skills and vocabulary, among many other benefits.

Our A Trip to the San Diego Zoo DVD brings the world-famous San Diego Zoo to life for your child while helping them to learn the names of certain animals and brightly colored tropical birds. Plus, they even witness the birth of a baby panda! This is one of our most popular baby music DVDs and received the Parents Magazine “Video of the Year” Award. It’s a virtual musical menagerie for your child.

Simply listening to baby music CDs has benefits, and much research shows that many genres really help boost your child’s development. The complexity of classical music is known to significantly increase brain activity, but all other genres have something to offer as well. That’s exactly why Baby Genius strives to continuously develop stimulating baby CD products. We offer CDs like Favorite Counting Songs, Favorite Lullabies and Favorite Nursery Rhymes, as well as perfect introductions to the world of classical music with baby DVDs such as Mozart and Friends Sleepytime and The Four Seasons, both of which are also available in Spanish.

Baby Music CDs and the Mozart Effect—Part 2

In our last blog post, we touched on some of the benefits that children’s songs and classical music have upon child development and intelligence, as well as the well-known implications of the “Mozart Effect.” Research findings about these myriad benefits and advantages created are part of the basis for the development of our stellar selection of baby music DVDs and other quality products for infants and toddlers.

A report published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience in 2010 provided analysis of all of the research that was performed by a group at Northwest University over the last two decades regarding the effect of everything from baby music to the classics. The report shows that music definitely has beneficial effects on the brain, improving literacy and reading comprehension, memory and focus, as well as language, vocabulary and speech skills. This information motivates many parents to employ baby music CDs and other musical baby toys during playtime as part of their child development activities.

It’s been found that listening and interacting with music, whether children’s songs or classical music, creates new neural connections or “pathways” in the brain. While simply listening increases the brain’s ability to adapt and change, further interaction allows for more connections to be made. When children dance and move around to music their socialization skills are ignited and they develop an outlet for self-expression that is comfortable and inspiring. An easy and fun way to encourage this is to pop one of Baby Genius’ baby music DVDs in your DVD player and watch your child react to the musical stimulation and accompanying visuals. For example, our Underwater Adventures DVD features colorful images and undersea life swimming accompanied by enchanting classical music. This type of product allows infants and children to enjoy positive stimulation through a rich sensory experience, while also helping them to associate certain visuals with their appropriate words and meanings.

Research performed at Brigham Young University found that music can even positively impact the physical development of premature infants. The sounds from baby music CDs can inspire movement and even the development of rhythm.

Aside from the educational and developmental benefits of baby music, there are also known effects on well-being that date back centuries—from lullabies to the classics, music has a calming and soothing effect on babies and toddlers, reducing stress and allowing them to relax and fall asleep. This effect extends all the way to adults—music can be used to unwind and meditate.  

Baby Music CDs and the Mozart Effect—Part 1

Have you ever wondered how the effects and benefits of baby music CDs on child development were discovered? Actual proof of music’s benefits, specifically with classical composers, came into play in 1993, when several studies showed increased test scores among participants who listened to Mozart before taking IQ tests—these findings brought the term “Mozart Effect” into being.  A research project conducted at the University of North Texas using music composed by Handel yielded similar results. Since then, many books have been published based on this research, including Don Campbell’s The Mozart Effect.

All these reports that classical music helps in brain development prompted parents everywhere to take advantage music in an entirely new way. In addition to working with classical music, it was found that baby music CDs and baby DVD products had similar results. This knowledge soon inspired mothers everywhere to strap headphones to their bellies so their unborn children could listen to the classics and baby music that taught things like the ABCs and counting numbers. Every year, as more findings regarding the benefits of children’s songs and classical music are discovered, more and more people subscribe to the concept of music’s positive cognitive effects.

Many studies over the years have shown that music, especially children's songs and classical music, has positive effects on the brain. Baby music not only helps a child develop memory, vocabulary and language skills, but with literacy and reading comprehension as well.

It’s a no-brainer that the movement that watching and listening to baby music DVDs encourages with a child helps with coordination and motor skills, but they can also help with visiospatial processing, mathematics and overall IQ development.

 
Playing and interacting with baby music DVDs also encourages and inspires a love for music, as well as a musical inclination, which can lead to even more incredible benefits. When a musical inclination is developed, that can lead to a child’s desire for music lessons—with that comes an entirely new gamut of benefits. In 2006, a study that was covered in an article in Science Daily revealed that children between the ages of four and six who took music lessons showed greater brain development and memory improvement than those who had no musical instruction