LullsongLullabies and singing: what the research shows
Updated 24 October 2026 · Written by the Lullsong team. General information, not medical advice.
Short answer
Singing calms babies, and the effect is measurable. In a Harvard study, 144 babies relaxed to lullabies from cultures they had never heard: heart rate fell and pupils got smaller. Other studies found that babies stayed calm about twice as long with singing as with speech, and that familiar songs worked best.
Lullabies work across cultures
Bainbridge and colleagues played US babies eight lullabies from faraway cultures and eight other songs from the same places. During the lullabies, the babies’ heart rate dropped, their pupils got smaller and their skin conductance fell: all signs of relaxing. The effect held across the whole first year, so it didn’t depend on musical experience.
Singing beats talking
In a study from Montreal (Corbeil et al., 2016), babies listening to singing stayed calm about twice as long as babies listening to speech before they became distressed.
With 8- and 10-month-olds, parents’ singing reduced distress more than talking did (Cirelli and Trehub, 2020). Familiar songs worked best and brought more smiles.
Making it part of bedtime
- Pick one or two songs and use them every night, so they become familiar.
- Your own voice counts. In Cirelli and Trehub’s study, the singers were the babies’ own parents.
- Keep it slow and soft, then let the room go quiet as your baby drifts off.
Lullsong includes Brahms’ lullaby, Au clair de la lune, Frère Jacques and a music box, with a timer that fades them out.
Sources
- Bainbridge CM, Bertolo M, Youngers J, et al. Infants relax in response to unfamiliar foreign lullabies. Nat Hum Behav 2021;5:256-264. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-00963-z
- Corbeil M, Trehub SE, Peretz I. Singing delays the onset of infant distress. Infancy 2016;21:373-391. https://doi.org/10.1111/infa.12114
- Cirelli LK, Trehub SE. Familiar songs reduce infant distress. Dev Psychol 2020;56:861-868. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000917
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- Contact naps: what’s safe and what’s known
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Lullsong
Lullsong plays soft white noise and lullabies for naps and bedtime, with a 30-minute timer on by default.