Since Birdie has been crawling over and rummaging through our music box, I’ve taken a few minutes to sort out what had been an increasingly messy jumble and have taken out all the instruments that aren’t safe for babies. Most of our instruments are great for little hands, though. There’s no need to limit babies to ‘baby instruments’ like shakers or copies of real musical instruments. They - and you - will get a lot more satisfaction from the real thing.
What’s in our music corner that Birdie can enjoy?
Bells
The jingle shaker is his favourite (and mine) of these. The caged bell has a fairly dull sound but is satisfying to shake in its own way. The jingle bells are repurposed from Birdie’s wooden mobile and I don’t let him play with these unsupervised since they are not actual musical instruments or intended for children. They’re very exciting for him but there a real possibility that he could trap his finger or cut himself on an unseen sharp edge.
The octave handbells require the most supervision. I will bring them out in pairs and demonstrate how to ring them. The wrist movement is a challenge for him at the moment so he gets tired of these very quickly.
Drums
I feel like we are lacking in the drum department since Birdie loves to bang on things! So far he uses the frame drum as a hand drum. He much prefers the cajon (box drum) and will crawl over to bang on it. It tips when he tries to pull up on it, so in the next month or two we plan to buy a bongo cajon that he can play while sitting.
Small untuned percussion
Birdie will spend a while exploring the tambourine - there’s lots to look at. He can’t play the guiro independently yet, but I will model the motion and then guide his hand when he picks it up. The plastic rain stick is our only ‘baby’ instrument and I will soon replace it with a more traditional rain stick since we all like having something like this around. Our egg shaker was too much of a choking risk so I’ve swapped it out for the DIY bean shaker that sometimes appears in Birdie’s treasure basket. I’d love to add a few more shakers to our set with different tones, although we are all very fussy about the sound of maracas (many are too loud and sharp sounding for our ears - a nails on chalkboard effect that we thankfully all share). We model the triangle and the claves; before long Birdie will be able to clap them together.
Large instruments
A very graciously lets Birdie strum his ukulele (we all adore his uke - a Makala waterman - which I’ll write all about when I talk about instruments for toddlers and preschool age kids), but Birdie’s favourite instrument by far is the piano. We sit him on our laps and let him bang away. Sometimes I will pick out a tune with one hand, or play some chords to ‘accompany’ him while he plays, and this seems to really please him. He will also crawl over and lay near the piano or put his hand against it when I play.
I would like to get a few more things that we can all enjoy, especially a large-keyed pentatonic glockenspiel or xylophone with non-removable keys. We love our Sonor diatonic glockenspiels for toddler age and up, but the removable keys aren’t baby-safe and the keys are too close together for a small baby to hit notes accurately. I have my eye on both the Auris and Decor ones - I’d love to hear reviews if you have one or both! I’m also considering getting a stirring drum or xylophone like this Auris one or this Nino one, as well as some sound blocks.
We have other smaller, less safe instruments that I have now put on a shelf where A can access them (things like his harmonica, our glockenspiels, and his DIY trumpet contraptions) but where Birdie can’t reach them. We’ve also secured the neck of the double bass to the shelves so that it’s less easy to pull over.
Getting started
If you are just starting out and looking to get a few quality musical instruments for your baby that will last, I’d recommend one item from each category: one kind of bell, one drum, one kind of shaking instrument or other untuned percussion. See which type your child prefers and build from there. If you don’t have a keyboard or piano, I would recommend getting a pentatonic glockenspiel that you can play to help create a musical atmosphere.
Reorganising and editing our instruments for baby safety has made me feel more excited about working towards family music time where all four of us play and contribute to a shared sound experience.
