Jojo:
What do we know about our babies?
The world that they enter into sound-wise is very different. It's quite a quiet place.
Where are the usual sounds that I heard in the womb?
In the womb, they've got the beat of the heart going all the time they've got all of this wonderful whooshing and swooshing. They've got the rhythms of walking. They've got your day and night patterns.
This is something that they're looking for from you when they're born.
In this way of making these little vocal sounds from yourself to your baby, you are giving back to them what they have lost after birth.
You don't have to sing straight away, if you're not happy to sing.
Just know that the very sound of you talking, the vibration, if the baby's on your chest they know that vibration, they remember it.
Start with just talking, talking, talking鈥 then you might want to just hum鈥
You might want to keep this to yourself, you might want to do this in private.
It's lovely to just watch what the babies give us. Well, what can they give us? Breathing.
And we can actually just make a sound or a touch on their out breath. So just watching for when the chest falls that's when we make our sound or our touch. And the baby knows absolutely that sound or touch is connected to them.
They might then have some movement in their arms or legs. We can copy it or we can touch them as they move. We can make a sound as they move.
And when they stop, we stop.
So it doesn't have to be a nursery rhyme. They love patterns, rhymes, repetitions. So this is what they're looking for.
It's to get to know your meaning. They understand the meaning, the intention, the emotion behind our words before they understand any of the words.
So this is their way to get to know us, our way to get to know them. And it's a cycle of building that relationship.