Nursery rhymes, sung or read, with or without actions, are a rich way to extend your baby’s life and

preschool cognitive development.

Nursery rhymes have a long history: they are sung, recited or read, some have actions and are often passed down to you by your parents. Aren’t they dated? Don’t you want to give your baby the latest and greatest?

The fact is the baby won’t mind. If it comes naturally to him, and it will, if he was also sung to as a child, in whatever language his mother tongue is, then he too is perfect to pass on to your little one. They don’t know that some, in English anyway, are about 500 years old. They will come to recognize the words, the melodies, the actions.

They are always at hand. Amuse a child on a long car ride – how many nursery rhymes can you remember? Or while the baby is waiting for her food, she can always respond to ‘Baa baa black sheep’ when you sing it, or ‘Twinkle twinkle little star’.

Then there is language development. Strong rhymes can cause the baby to predict the next word and join in, long before that word is part of her spoken vocabulary: ‘Once I saw a little bird / Coming, hop, hop-‘ ‘Hop!’ your little one screams with joy. The word for a children’s song can be a request for everyone. “Oh Darling” (sung) was how a toddler requested a nursery rhyme session on the piano at sixteen months. And the word ‘spider’ or actually seeing one – real or photographed – would lead to an attempt to perform the actions of ‘Ipsey wipsey spider climbed up the waterspout’, even at thirteen months. Another, at twelve months, responded to the song ‘Twinkle twinkle’, or to the shape of a star seen, with the diamond shape on the fingers.

Some of the actions are very dramatic. ‘This is the way the ladies ride/Tri, tre, tre, tree, tri tre tre tree’ with its ending where the butcher says ‘bumpety bumpety bumpety – off’ – all so exciting on (and off) the knee of an officiating adult.

Some of the words are old-fashioned, even archaic, but any language at this age is a good language, and if used correctly it can be perfectly understood. At three years old, one girl was still using baby talk, so she begged to be picked up: “Ugh, ugh, or my heart will break,” a phrase her brother, six months younger, used when he was trapped. on a fence: “Help me or my heart will break! (the nursery rhyme is ‘There was a lady who loved a pig’)

But aren’t they full of violence and death? Everyone seems to know the (apocryphal) story about ‘Ring a ring a rosies/ a pocket full of poies’ about the plague. But it does not matter to a child, who enjoys playing and falling very much. In fact, another child used the word ‘awfawdow’ (‘everyone falls down’) when he was looking at any nursery rhyme book, or even when he saw one of his parents sitting on the floor. But there is also death and violence, in terms the child can understand: ‘Goosy goosy gander’ has ‘an old man’ thrown down the stairs, ‘Solomon Grundy’ has ‘died Saturday, buried Sunday’ and ‘Who killed Cock? ? Robin?’ (‘a sparrow with an arrow’ responded a child upon hearing the phrase as the title of a picture book). Once upon a time, these casual glances at death might have prepared children (just a little) for the deaths of siblings and even parents, which were much more common than they are now. Today, rhymes are just part of the cycle of life and death, which most of today’s lucky kids learn through the lives and deaths of their pets and grandparents.

Well, I can hear you say, aren’t some of them complete nonsense? Yes, of course it is true. There are the most open ones like ‘Two children sliding on the ice, / All in a summer’s day’ and the more subtle ones that tell stories that are simply impossible ‘There was an old woman who lived in a shoe’. But goofiness, puns, fantasy, and imagination are all ways the young child learns about reality, too. They can laugh at these rhymes backwards, understanding the humor and its unreality.

In short, offer lullabies to your baby from birth. They will give infinite pleasure to the little one, and will also remind you of your own childhood.