Using your voice can be an amazing way to connect with your baby. In fact, numerous studies have shown that babies even begin responding to familiar voices before birth. Why wouldn’t you want to take advantage of this fact and connect with your little bundle of joy before they even become a little bundle of joy? You can do all kinds of things to familiarize baby with daddy’s voice. You can read baby books, sing to baby, talk to baby, or even tell stories to your child.
I can tell you from personal experience, you may feel a little silly the first time you talk to your wife’s belly. I certainly did. After time I grew more comfortable doing this, and it became a special way to feel more a part of the whole pregnancy experience. An amazing thing that began to happen was that in the later stages of the pregnancy, I would place my hand on my wife’s tummy and then start to talk to our daughter. I could feel the baby turn in response to my voice. It was really cool.
After Elizabeth was born, I got to hold her and talk with her all the time. I found myself naturally exaggerating the tone of my voice to great extremes for her. It just felt natural to do it that way. I used all the range in my voice to try to convey every ounce of love and affection I felt for her. I made my voice go from very high for baby talk to very low for singing lullabies. It seemed that she was much more responsive when I varied the tempo, rhythm, and especially the tone and pitch of my voice.
If you don’t see much of a response from your child at first, don’t lose heart. It can take several weeks for a baby to learn to smile to show happiness. I can tell you that all the hard work (and it can be tiresome let me tell you) is worth it the first time you are holding your little baby, and she smiles up at you as you start to talk to her.
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