A stream of Mozart wafting from your baby’s CD player may be soothing, but the jury’s still out on whether classical music makes babies smarter. You may want to add a bit of Beyoncé to your baby’s playlist, because the latest research shows that it’s the beat, rather than melody, that gets infants going. Babies coordinate their movement to the tempo and rhythm of music, and they find this even more engaging than hearing people talk, according to a new study from the United Kingdom and Finland. “This reaction is very spontaneous and occurs so early that we suggest that babies may be born to move rhythmically in response to music,” says Marcel Zentner, PhD, a coauthor of the report and an associate professor of psychology at the University of York in England. Even better, the more babies groove to the beat, the more they smile. Because infants have limited motor control, they can’t always get in sync with the song. You can help your baby find the rhythm by doing just what parents often do instinctively: bounce babies to the music on their lap, and help them clap their hands in tempo or pedal their legs to the beat. Whether or not you have a little dancer in the making remains to be seen, but you will have a baby who’s all smiles.

Move It!

To promote your baby’s rhythmic movement (and big grins):

• Start with the basics. “Infants have to extract the rhythmic pulse from music before they can move to it,” says Dr. Marcel Zentner. To break things down, beat simple rhythms on a toy drum to help your baby connect immediately and move to the beat.  
• Try all kinds of music. Your baby may respond really well to one piece and not at all to another. Experiment to find the rhythms that help her get her groove on.  
• Go with the flow. Little ones don’t need to be baby Baryshnikovs. The idea is to just let them express themselves.