I never really gave much stock to the playing music to them in the womb thing. Sure, I tried it, didn’t really get much of a response at all to any music, barring a night when 8 months pregnant, stood fairly close to the DJ booth in a packed nightclub, with baba going mental to some song that was in the charts at the time. So I didn’t quite go full hung ho into the playing Mozart to E in the womb, in the hopes of him attaining 625 points the second he got into secondary school. He listened to what I listened to, which seemed to be mixture of sappy love songs, pop songs from the 90s and some Dubstep when his daddy decided that was what he should be exposed to from day one.
When he got here things were a bit different. He screamed at any U2 song until it was turned off. Lana Del Ray was my champion in the early days for calming him and putting him to sleep, with Robbie Williams vying for that same top spot. Both artists I would have listened to a bit when pregnant but not excessively. So far, so normal.
In the last two weeks, E has been on another one of his “wonder weeks”, which apparently means he can be an absolute brat and I’m not allowed be grumpy about it, because he’s learning and expanding. And learning to be a total head wreck. He’s not a major fan of being out of my arms and not even the sling is sufficing much of the time. On top of this, we’ve had a heatwave ( hello lovely Leaving Cert weather!), which any other year would mean my factor 50 slathered self would be in a beer garden/back garden after work with a glass of wine chilling out, but this year means having arguments with parasols, draping white light fabric over half of the buggy, and dealing with a grumpy warm baby who isn’t eating like normal due to the heat, and burning to a crisp myself in the process. It’s been a fun household to live in…
Three nights ago, E goes off on one. Screeches the place down, won’t feed, clean nappy, just seems to be screaming for no reason. I stick on Spotify, on comes John Legend’s “All of Me”, a song I listened to quite a bit when I was in very late pregnancy and stuck in hospital. It had been used on Grey’s Anatomy, I’d found it online and got hooked (in truly hipster form, weeks before it became a massive hit here). E was asleep before the first verse was over. I’d think it was a coincidence if the same thing hadn’t happened yesterday. This song seems to have a completely calming effect on him, especially when I sing along, which is fantastic. I think its interesting that he potentially would link it to his last days in the womb and calm down quickly with it, it gives stock to the argument that they are affected by what they can hear. Regardless, its a lovely song, and fairly fitting.
“All of Me, loves all of you, all your curves and all your edges, all your perfect imperfections. Give your all to me, I’ll give my all to you, You’re my end and my beginning, even when I lose I’m winning, cos I give you all of me.. and you give me all of you”.
Long may the calming effect last. I’m trying to recall anything else that I may have listened to half as obsessively while he was in there, for fear that this will start to wear off.
Also starting to think that Mozart may have been a good idea after all…
Has anyone else found this, that music you listened to while pregnant is recognised by baby?
I had exactly the same experience when my little one was small. We had no dishwasher when I was pregnant and I used to spend the evenings listening to the radio and singing along while I did the dishes. Adele’s 21 album was huge at the time and combined with my pregnancy hormones I used to get really emotional banging out the lyrics to “Someone like you” 🙂 My other half hated it but I really loved the song. When the little man was a few weeks old we were in IKEA and he wasn’t in great form. The Adele song came on over the PA system and we had this “moment” – he stop grizzling, and our eyes locked while he just smiled all the way through it. I’m convinced he remembered it! I wrote a blog post about music in my pregnancy and during birth many moons ago, must dig it out…