There is no app for your lap and that is your baby’s favourite place to be.
That’s why lap rhymes are so important. And you can play as soon as you welcome your baby into your arms.
Baby songs and rhymes have been in use for hundreds of years and they are just as essential nowadays.
Sharing rhymes and songs with babies is how we make connections, and nurture a lifelong love of language.
We play these rhymes with babies, face-to-face, and body to body. It’s important for so many reasons.
Take a few minutes and watch this recent TED talk and you will begin to understand just how important it is to play rhymes with babies. You will see with your own eyes how vital even the simplest game of peekaboo resonates with your baby.
You can learn to play songs and rhymes by heart, and enrich your day with baby and help soothe your nights, too. You are your baby’s favourite toy.
After 40 years of teaching my own parent and baby weekly programs in Toronto, I am delighted to recommend three new programs. You can find them in three different parts of the city. Joining a class could be one of the best investments you make with your baby.
So, if you are looking for toe rhymes, tickles, fingerplays, songs and bounces and want to learn how to play them all day long, check out these new weekly programs!
Join Miss Carmen for Read and Rhyme Baby Time at Type Books Junction (@readandrhymebabytime);
Meghan Lockington-Minns brings A Rhyme For That! to Mabel’s Fables Children’s Bookstore on Mt. Pleasant (@rhymeforthat);
and Lara Munro from Pegasus Dance Studios (@pegasusdancestudios) brings Tiny Toes and Little Wigglers to Silly Goose Kids on the Danforth (@sillygoosekids).
These delightful programs will have you singing around the clock with your little ones. One of my favourite comments from a past participant in my own programs was: Every night is like a little operetta in my house! And the best parenting advice I can offer is… When all else fails, sing!