Babies turn us into non-stop singing machines. Why?

Sana Qadar: Hey there a heads up. This episode is one from our archives.

Joji Malani: I'm one of those people who who sing everything as a coping mechanism, like, oh my God, it's really hot right now. You know, I'll be in a sauna and everyone's there trying to focus and be tranquil and I'll be like, Oh dear, it's sweaty in here.

Sana Qadar: You're one of those people?

Joji Malani: Yeah, one of those people who are, like, very annoying. But all that, all those annoying traits kind of an attribute to being the perfect annoying father. I think in that sense of I don't have any shame about singing to my kid no matter where I am.

Sana Qadar: This is Joji Malani, and he is not your average singing parent.

Joji Malani: First and foremost, I'm proud Father, proud Fijian. I was a forming member of an Australian band called Gang of Youths.

Sana Qadar: Joji is now a solo artist and he also runs a label focused on Pasifica artists. But the singing he does for his daughter is different.

Joji Malani: And I've known other parents who have found it weird. They've kind of caught themselves singing to their child in public and and being like, if I didn't have a child in my hands right now, this would be really weird and uncomfortable for me. But this is second nature. It's like a second nature thing.

Sana Qadar: Yeah. No, that's that's describes me. I had plenty of times after having a kid where I was like, Who am I? I'm singing about everything. All the time. Definitely singing to babies and young children is a pretty universal behaviour, but the sheer amount of singing new parents tend to do can be confusing and baffling.

Lara Torr: Yes, I've said to people that I think I sang to her more in the first few months than I spoke to her.

Alix Woolard: Because I never used to sing that much before.

Yvonne Ardley: It was almost automatic I think.

Lara Torr: I would just start to run a kind of ongoing song description of everything that I was doing.

Kellie Scott: But when I'm singing like the nickname songs and the made up tunes, that just comes out of me. Like, I'm not consciously doing that.

Georgia Garside-Walker: You always do like that baby voice, too. Like everything's in this high pitched sing song.

Lara Torr: Every time I wipe her nose for her, I like sing a version of, you know, the song Goldfinger, the James Bond song. Instead I go, nose wiper. Yeah. It just something comes over you and everything becomes a potential parenting song.

Sana Qadar: That is really funny and really cute.

Lara Torr: It brings a bit of, like, tension and glamour to the process.

Sana Qadar: Where does this instinct to sing about everything come from? It's like a switch gets flipped the moment you're near a baby

Alix Woolard: 100% You don't have to be a parent to realise that this is this is what we do. Like child care workers, for instance, they do this.

Sana Qadar: So in today's episode, we're going to get to the bottom of this weird compulsion that comes over people when they're near a baby, because there are some key reasons we do this.

Alix Woolard: There's actually three functions to this.

Sana Qadar: And we're also going to hear some of the songs you have made up for your little ones, because a couple of weeks ago we did a call out for your baby songs and oh my gosh, the amount of cuteness that rolled into our inbox, it was next level.

Baby song: Parent song in background.

Parent: This is the song that I sing sometimes to my older children.

Joji Malani: She's like trying to sing along.

Alix Woolard: Now in my head, this is a true 80s power rock. Imagine Jack Black just giving it everything.

Baby song: That's how we change your nappy.

Sana Qadar: Adorable! And since all of you were so generous with your songs, I will, even against my better judgement, share one of the songs I have made up for my kid. I still actually sing it to him now because it's quite just sentimental and sweet and don't have a recording, so I'm going to have to sing it to you.

Alix Woolard: Oh, I am very excited for this.

Sana Qadar: Which is just so embarrassing and I can't believe I'm doing this, but here we go.

Alix Woolard: Okay.

Sana Qadar: Nah you're just going to have to keep listening for that embarrassing tidbit. This is All in the Mind. I'm Sana Qadar, today, the silly, sweet, spontaneous songs we sing to babies and why we sing them.

Parent: (singing) Put another nappy, put a nappy on Liam. Put another nappy on Liam George.

Sana Qadar: We have had so many lovely songs sent to us in the last couple of weeks and I've been noticing they seem to fall into certain categories. Some songs are for a specific situation, like a nappy change.

Parent: song continues

Sana Qadar: Some are playful silly ditties for just any time.

Baby song: (singing) Dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig. A doo doo.

Sana Qadar: Most are totally made up Words and tunes just plucked from a parent's head.

Baby song: (singing) Mum and baby have some fun. He's an ice cream scoop. Ba doop and.

Sana Qadar: Others are kind of remixes of existing songs.

Joji Malani: (singing) Kiki, Kiki, Kiki. Kiki.

Sana Qadar: Joji Malani's song falls into the remix camp and song for a specific activity camp.

Joji Malani: (singing) I want nothing else. Then to get this Kiki, get this Kiki dressed Baby. Baby.

Sana Qadar: You see, he's been going through a Third Eye Blind phase recently. And the song Semi-charmed Life in particular has been stuck deep in his head. So he came into the All in the Mind studio to talk about his remix, and he brought along his two year old daughter.

Sana Qadar: (To Joji's daughter, Kiki) Hey, Kiki. You gonna come this way?

Sana Qadar: Making this the cutest interview I have ever done. All right. We can just let her walk around. Okay. So the song you sent. Tell me about it.

Joji Malani: Yeah. Semi-charmed kind of life. It just. There's something about it that seems so, like, angelic and simple and kind of, like, approachable in a childlike sense. Like the doo doo doo. (Kiki sings along) And so I just started singing Kiki along to it.

Joji Malani: (Joji and Kiki sing) Kikiki Kikiki

Sana Qadar: Can you sing it Kiki?

Joji Malani: (singing) Kiki. Kiki. Kiki, Kiki.

Sana Qadar: And then what do you do with the verse?

Joji Malani: Well, I usually sing it to her while she's getting dressed, so I'm just like, (singing) Got to get your shirt on. Got to put your right arm in and your left arm in. We got to go out soon. Got to put your pants on. (kiki singing along) Now to your left sock and your right sock. I don't know. You know.

Joji Malani: (Joji's song plays) (singing) Shirt over your body. And now we're going to put on your little pants. Going to put your left pants and your right pants (song fades).

Sana Qadar: That's really cute. And so, yeah. How does she respond when you sing that, when you're, you know, trying to get her dressed and out the door or whatever's happening?

Joji Malani: Oh, she loves it. She loves it.

Sana Qadar: She listens? She gets her clothes on?

Joji Malani: She's, she's like now expectant. Because anyone else who gets her changed doesn't sing that song. She, like, doesn't like getting getting changed. But that's the thing, right? That's like why we do these kind of things. We create an event out of something that's kind of, to them a torturous situation, you know? But making this event out of it, she, like, looks forward to it now.

Sana Qadar: Aww.

Joji Malani: Sometimes talking to your child, they find it very hard to engage with what you're saying in this kind of atonal, normal, communicative sense. But when you sing it to them and there's melody and there's rhythm and there's rhyme, they're just so engaged. And I personally don't know the science behind that, but just from my own personal experience, I've noticed that singing really helps.

Sana Qadar: Yeah, that's you hit the nail on the head. That's definitely one of the functions of why we sing to kids.

Alix Woolard: So there's actually three functions to this. The first, it's a really great tool for grabbing a baby's attention. And there are a bunch of studies that show that babies have a preference for this type of communication.

Sana Qadar: This is Dr. Alix Woolard.

Alix Woolard: I am a researcher at Embrace at Telethon Kids and the University of Western Australia. So I research attachment and right now I work in trauma. But for my PhD, I looked at this really cool thing called baby talk.

Sana Qadar: Alix says singing falls under the umbrella of baby talk because it's about the general way we communicate with babies and young kids.

Alix Woolard: So if you sit a baby in a room and in fact, actually I'll tell you this story that happened to me, I was I was doing a talk. Big auditorium. And, you know, when you're talking in front of a lot of people, I don't pay attention to the audience because I'm just so nervous. Yeah. So I had no idea what was going on in the audience. And I'm talking and I'm talking about, you know, my research. And then I start I always give examples of what this communication sounds like. And so I go, Hey, baby, like that, right? And everyone, everyone starts laughing. And I thought they were just laughing at me. It turns out that there was a baby in the audience. I swear I did not plant this. I did not plant this baby. The baby in the audience was crying and then stopped crying and paid attention to me.

Sana Qadar: Wow. It's that powerful.

Alix Woolard: It is that powerful that you start engaging with the baby with this communication. And they just they will they will give you their attention.

Sana Qadar: And do we know why babies respond to this kind of communication so well?

Alix Woolard: So we have a couple of theories. One is that it is so salient, so it sticks out. And so when we do studies looking at their brain, brain activity changes when we communicate in this way. So it's really it's just really powerful. It stands out and it's easier to kind of latch onto.

Sana Qadar: Right.

Alix Woolard: Which brings me to my next point that we use this communication to teach babies. So if you think about a baby, where are they learning how to speak?

Sana Qadar: From their parents?

Alix Woolard: From their parents.

Sana Qadar: Or caregivers Yeah.

Alix Woolard: Caregivers, exactly. And songs are really educational. So even when a baby is not speaking themselves yet, you're teaching them how to speak, how to learn language, how to how to construct sentences, and also how to interact with other people. So turn taking.

Parent: (singing) My baby.

Alix Woolard: When you have a break in a sentence, it kind of signals to the other person, okay, it's your time to to talk now.

Parent: (singing) Your eyes go to sleep now. Sweet Little baby.

Alix Woolard: So when you're when you're singing to a baby, you'll naturally go off of the baby's cues. And usually what happens is you'll have a break in singing and wait for your baby to make some sort of signal towards you. So whether that's smiling or giggling or if they're a bit older, maybe babbling, or maybe you're waiting for them to to sing a part of the song. So you're teaching turn taking, which is this really great social tool. It's teaching kids how to be around and communicate with other people.

Sana Qadar: A lot of the songs that were sent to us illustrated this perfectly. So there's the lullaby you just heard from Perth mum, Yvonne Ardley. And then there's this other example which I played for Alix. Okay. This song comes from Mike Williams, who used to work here at the ABC. He's now at a different podcasting house. Okay, let me play this one.

Mike Williams: (Mike sings) Check your nappy. What's it gonna (Child sings) be? (Mike) What's it gonna (Child) be? What's it gonna be? Let's (child) see if it's. (Mike) Oh, wow. We'll know what to do. If it's a wee might let it (child) be. What's it gonna. What's it gonna (child) be (mike) what's it gonna. Let's see. It's a, it's a, it's not a poo.

Alix Woolard: (Alix and Sana laugh) Amazing. That is such a great example of turn taking. So he is allowing the baby to learn how to turn take, but also to learn language. How cool is that? That was perfect.

Sana Qadar: That is a very effective nappy change song. I might need to steal that one.

Alix Woolard: That was awesome.

Sana Qadar: Okay, so we've covered two of the functions of singing to babies, getting their attention and teaching language and turn taking. The third function is:

Alix Woolard: All about emotion. So when we're communicating with with babies, it's a feedback loop. So you've got two partners or maybe even more, but say you've got the caregiver and the baby. The baby signals the mum, the mum signals the baby and you're each kind of meeting each other's needs. With emotion, usually what happens is, is the baby has some sort of need and has an emotional reaction. So crying or giggling or whatever, and the caregiver will pick up on that and will usually communicate or have some sort of behavioural reaction. And then the baby will kind of recognise whether or not they had their need met. And it keeps going on and on like that. This is what the singing is doing as well. So you're regulating your baby's emotions.

Baby song: Have a little bounce around our lovely house.

Alix Woolard: And Alix says the pitch and tone you use to do that changes according to how old your baby is.

Alix Woolard: Sometimes early on, you're singing songs that are like soothing. So and you notice that in the tone of voice, you're trying to to kind of down regulate the baby's emotions, trying to to calm them. Right.

Baby song: We'll have a little bounce. We'll have a little bounce.

Alix Woolard: So in the first say, you know, a couple of months, particularly the first six weeks, we don't find that the pitch that we use gets really heightened and what we would call kind of exaggerated pitch intonation because we're not trying to kind of like encourage our babies to play around and to play with us. We're more, you know, trying to soothe them.

Sana Qadar: This song is a good example of what Alix is talking about. It was sent to us by Lara from Adelaide and her daughter is now three years old. But she made this recording when her daughter was just a few weeks old.

Lara Torr: I can remember it distinctly and I'm a solo mum so I'm the only parent in the household. And I was very lucky that in the early weeks of being home with my daughter, my mum and my sister came and basically moved in for a number of weeks, so I was rarely alone. And then this particular afternoon was one of the first times that I was really alone in the house with my daughter. And she was quite grisly and I was holding her and kind of doing that bouncy rocking that often tiny babies love where you're really just dropping your knees. And I was bouncing her and I just remember that I started singing this thing about we're having a bounce (Lara's song plays in the background). And then you're kind of thinking, well, like, oh, it's turning into a song. What are the words? And just coming out with all of these things about our home and who we were together as this family. And then thinking after singing it a few times, Oh, I'd better get my phone out and record it because I'll wake up tomorrow and I won't remember. And it was very much the song for a period of time which would get my daughter to settle down.

Sana Qadar: So yeah, it was effective. It got her to settle.

Lara Torr: It did.

Sana Qadar: I played this song for Alix as well.

Alix Woolard: Oh, and it's so it's really fascinating how much teaching I can hear in that interaction. So I can I can imagine her holding the baby and bouncing the baby. And every time she bounces, she says, bounce, bounce. That's a word that this baby is going to learn.

Sana Qadar: And you're so right about the soft, soothing voice.

Alix Woolard: Yes, that's that's exactly what I was going to say. This is like very much a soothing lullaby.

Sana Qadar: I have my own version of this kind of soothing lullaby that I made up for my son when he was really tiny. And it just sort of came out of me one day. So I wanted to get Alix's thoughts on it as well. And I still actually sing it to him now because it's quite just sentimental and sweet and I don't have a recording, so I'm going to have to sing it to you.

Alix Woolard: Oh, I am very excited for this.

Sana Qadar: Which is just so embarrassing and I can't believe I'm doing this, but here we go. Okay, So it's kind of it's a tune that just sort of goes in a circle and can go on and on, and it's a mix of Urdu and English, and it goes... (Sana sings). And it goes round and round. And what it means is

Alix Woolard: First of all, can I just say I love I love it, You love it. It's going to be stuck in my head today. I love it.

Sana Qadar: It's an earworm for sure. It means okay. It means my my child, my son, my baby, my soul. And it was very much like in that soothing kind of tone you talked about. And it's when I sing it now, it's still when I'm like, rocking him, when he, you know, the few times he still wants that as a three year old and teaching him two languages like I guess that was all packed in there, although I didn't really realise it at the time.

Alix Woolard: That's amazing. And it sounds like it was such an emotional, beautiful song that you're sharing with your baby and I can actually visualise you sitting holding him and singing this to him, having a really great shared social moment there.

Sana Qadar: That is so sweet.

Alix Woolard: Yes, it's that's that's what would have happened.

Sana Qadar: Sharing social moments.

Alix Woolard: And that's exactly what we use them for.

Sana Qadar: Yeah. Yeah.

Sana Qadar: I Never expected to be singing on this show but here we are anyways. As our babies get older, the kinds of songs we sing can start to change both in content and pitch and tone. So think of the next stage as the 3 to 9 month age bracket.

Alix Woolard: This is when they start to roll. They start to they start to look around at the world. They start to to be able to pick things up and play with toys.

Sana Qadar: So between 3 to 9 months, the pitch goes up.

Alix Woolard: It goes up and down. So I'm going to give you an example. Ooh, what have you got there? And can you hear how my voice goes up and down and up and down and up and down? We also we also do this thing called hyper articulation of vowels. It means we stretch the vowels out in our words. So hiiiiiii, baaaaby.

Sana Qadar: Here's what that sounds like when it's done in the form of a song. This is from Geelong Mum, Georgia Jarecki-Warke.

Baby song: (singing) Let's go over here. Let's go over there. Let's go over here and let's go over there. Over here. Over there. Over there. Over here. Over here. Over there. Over there. Over here.

Alix Woolard: That's amazing.

Sana Qadar: It's just so happy and sweet.

Alix Woolard: And you can hear the baby there, too.

Sana Qadar: Yes!

Alix Woolard: The baby is loving it. Oh, that's lovely.

Sana Qadar: And you're right about like, you know, that's when that baby is getting a bit more mobile and they're singing about that kind of content and, yeah, much higher pitch and going up and down and exaggerated all of it.

Alix Woolard: That's exactly right.

Sana Qadar: Then as a baby grows ever older and crosses the nine month mark.

Alix Woolard: This other thing happens where they start to attempt to speak, to attempt to say words typically. So this is when your language becomes a little more technical. So you start to repeat words. It's less about the pitch that we're using and more about the content.

Sana Qadar: And then so once they hit like toddlerhood two, three, from just my observations, the songs just get silly and playful. Is that what generally happens?

Alix Woolard: I think it's more about shared enjoyment as well. So that's silliness and like they now recognise that this is silly, this doesn't make sense and that's funny. And so it's about shared enjoyment.

Sana Qadar: This age is also when songs especially become about getting a kid to do something like the Kiki Getting Dressed song that Joji Malani came up with to the tune of Semi-charmed Life.

Sana Qadar: I played the song for Alix and she had an interesting observation.

Joji Malani: (Joji sings song)

Alix Woolard: (Alix laughs) That's amazing. Okay. Oh, my gosh. So there's this. This thing that happens, right? So when I talk about the communication we have with babies early on, and I usually say that there aren't many differences between mums and dads or males and females when they're talking to babies.

Alix Woolard: Right.

Sana Qadar: But there is one slight difference that happens when babies get a bit older. Dads get a little more directive or action directive. So did you notice in that that he was kind of showing teaching the baby what he was doing? This is what I'm doing. This is the action that I'm taking.

Sana Qadar: Yes. Yeah. I'm putting your left arm in and your right.

Alix Woolard: Exactly. So that is what we just heard. But it was also very playful. They were both having so much fun with it.

Sana Qadar: This kind of action orientation showed up in other songs by dads, too, like this one from Matt Burrell.

Parent: (singing) Daddy's Gonna Change a nappy. Daddy's gonna change it fresh.

Sana Qadar: And the song from Mike Williams that we heard earlier.

Mike Williams: (singing and strumming guitar) What's it gonna be? What's it gonna be in your nappy?

Sana Qadar: In fact, all of the dads who sent in songs sent ones that were action slash activity oriented it be. That's not to say mums didn't send any action oriented songs. They did.

Baby song: We're gonna clean your face. We're gonna clean your face. We're gonna make you nice and clean.

Sana Qadar: Mums just sent a wider variety, which included lullabies and other kinds of songs.

Baby song: Pinchy The lobster. They also call him Rory, Pinchy the lobster. He'll pinch you for free.

Sana Qadar: Now, it also has to be said, we simply had a whole lot more songs sent to us from mums than dads. So this isn't definitive proof that dads absolutely sing more action oriented songs. It's just the case in our small sample size. But it is an interesting pattern given what Alix said about how dads tend to sing as children get older.

Alix Woolard: We find that dads do this thing called rough and tumble play, so they kind of like a more physical in their play. Yeah. So that's just what we see. And it's just, you know, when you're playing physically, you usually talk about it.

Sana Qadar: Regardless of the kinds of songs we sing. The fact that we sing is pretty universal, although I say pretty because there is a caveat.

Alix Woolard: So it's near universal. Most people do it and we find that it is kind of cross-cultural. There are a couple of indigenous tribes across the world who don't do this, so one of them is in New Guinea. So that tribe, they actually don't speak to the child within that first year. So culturally, this is just a thing that they've adopted and they don't they don't actually speak to the baby. The other tribe is in Guatemala and they actually speak for the baby. They they take on the baby's voice and they speak to other adults as the baby.

Sana Qadar: Wow.

Alix Woolard: Yeah. So it's actually pretty interesting.

Sana Qadar: And so do we know anything about how that impacts the child's development or what like what the impact of that kind of thing is?

Alix Woolard: We don't know the long term impacts yet. So this is actually a relatively recent finding that anthropologists have kind of unearthed. So I think keep an eye out.

Sana Qadar: For the vast majority of us, though, it is pure instinct to sing for our babies.

Lara Torr: I was thinking about this in relation to having a chat with you and I feel like it's such an emotional time when you have a newborn in ways that make sense and in ways that don't make sense because your hormones are just kind of doing wild things and it's almost easier to sing than it is to speak because to speak and try and put your feelings into words would bring a lot of stuff to the surface, whereas there's just this little bit of levity or ease in singing, you know? So it's almost like it's a comfort zone for the adult, too, I think.

Sana Qadar: Yeah, that's that's really lovely. And that's beautiful because, yeah, I've wondered if when we're singing to our babies to soothe them, whether we're sort of soothing ourselves at the same time.

Lara Torr: Absolutely.

Sana Qadar: Yeah.

Lara Torr: I think we must be.

Joji Malani: Absolutely. I know that for myself and I sense that and feel that in others.

Sana Qadar: Here is the bittersweet part. After a certain point, your kids stop wanting you to sing. Ryan Egan is a colleague here at the ABC and his kids are now six and eight.

Ryan Egan: They sing in the car and they tell me to be quiet.

Sana Qadar: But when they were smaller, he had a teeth brushing song for them that they were super into.

Ryan Egan: (singing) All aboard the teeth train. Everybody's getting on board.

Ryan Egan: And we stopped doing our tooth brushing song when they were sort of old enough to brush their own teeth.

Ryan Egan: (singing) Brush those teeth, teeth, train nice and clean, Teeth train.

Ryan Egan: Probably around 4 or 5 or maybe even just a tiny bit earlier. They didn't really need it.

Sana Qadar: Do you know if they remember that song?

Ryan Egan: No, they have no idea. They don't remember it now. They just look at me like I'm just weird. Like, what is that song? Dad? Why would you sing that now? Like, it's just. And they have no interest in the song whatsoever. They just do not understand. Why would need to sing a song about brushing your teeth.

Sana Qadar: Oh, that's hilarious.

Sana Qadar: Does that make you sad at all that they no longer want you to sing or you don't need to sing such songs to them anymore?

Ryan Egan: I don't really mind. I mean, you know, if they like me singing to them, that's great. If they don't like me singing to them, that's also fine as well. I mean, I wouldn't want to kind of go around just singing, you know, for for them when they didn't like it. It's kind of torturous. I'm not a fantastic singer, so I sort of get it. It doesn't make me too sad.

Sana Qadar: I mean, I feel pretty sad at the idea of no longer singing to my kid one day. It's just such a lovely, sweet thing to do. But guess that's the way it goes. Kids adore you when they're little. Start to think you're cringe or daggy a little later, and then hopefully, hopefully, they come back around again.

Sana Qadar: Have you ever thought about when you will stop singing to her? Like when you'll no longer make up these silly songs and sing the Kiki Kiki Kiki song, You know?

Joji Malani: Well, she kind of doesn't have a choice. I mean, I'd. I perform. So I envision embarrassing her right up until my deathbed.

Lara Torr: I don't think I will ever stop singing to her. I expect it's going to be a feature of our relationship that brings her great cringe later in life. I love the fact that she does it too currently.

Sana Qadar: Here is the final bit of cuteness I want to end the show on. So Lara's daughter is now three, which means Lara doesn't really sing the bounce around the house song much anymore. But a couple of weeks after we spoke, she emailed me to say her daughter started singing the song all of a sudden, unprompted, just on her own one day.

Lara's daughter singing: Have a little bounce. We have a little bounce around the lovely house.

Lara Torr: Now she has that lovely thing that young children do, which is that it's not at all embarrassing for her to sing, really normal way of communicating. And if I can keep the door open to that by being a bit silly, then I'll try my hardest to do that for as long as possible.

Sana Qadar: That is All in the Mind for this week. I want to say a massive thank you to all of the parents who sent us the songs they sing to their kids. It has been an absolute joy to listen to them all. We had so many songs sent to us that we couldn't actually fit them all in this episode. But I do want to thank each and every one of you who took the time to record yourselves and email us. So thank you to Joji Malani, Lara Torr, Adelaide Badgery, Georgia Walker, Georgia Jarecki-Warke , Kellie Scott, Leanne Waterfield, Matt Burrell, Michael Gatt and Tenille Kennedy, Mike Williams, Natalia Henderson-Faranda, Regan Beattie, Ryan Egan, Sarah Martin, Virginia Spicer-Harden and Yvonne Ardley. Big thanks also to Dr. Alix Woolard from the Telethon Kids Institute and University of Western Australia. Finally, thank you to producer Rose Kerr and sound engineer Tegan Nichols. I'm Sana Qadar. Thank you for listening. I'll catch you next time.