Daddy-and-me bonding over music! 

We asked our friend Rick over at Family Entourage to give us a look into his life raising his beautiful 2-year-old son, and getting ready for baby number two. Take a look at what he has to say about his first time around, and what he has learned that will definitely make him a pro this time! 

When we were pregnant with our first child I wanted to surprise my wife with a little gift. With all the baby gifts she was receiving from other people, I wanted to be able to get her something unique. That's when I came across BellyBuds. I initially got BellyBuds to play music to the womb because I had heard about the many benefits of playing music to baby; but I had no idea how much BellyBuds would impact my wife and I as well.

At first, I only wanted to play classical music, but after some convincing from my wife, I became open to making playlists that included other types of music as well. It made perfect sense to expose the baby to a range of music, because we have all different types of music playing around the house and in the car at any-given time- from hip hop to faith-based worship music. I helped my wife create a playlist of classical music mixed with some of our favorites. My hope was that our newest addition would develop the same love for music that my wife and I have.

My wife found it relaxing to listen to music with the baby before bed, and I would sometimes play my favorite podcasts for him as well. We were both able to listen along with the BellyBuds headphone splitter. Using BellyBuds became a part of our evening routine as soon-to-be parents. We would get ready for bed, put on a couple songs and then pray for the baby. It was a great way for us to end our day and connect with each other and the baby. It helped me as a dad get in the habit of being a part of the evening routine.

We recently adopted the use of WavHello's SoundBub Bluetooth speaker and white noise machine to continue to foster our son's love of music. As Joshua began to move around on his own, we started to notice that he was reacting and dancing when we played him the same music that we played to him through BellyBuds. Now, I get to see the music-lover in him shine through when we do our special "daddy-and-son" projects, like yard work and tidying up the playroom. My wife and I have so much fun watching his little dance moves! 

I was pleasantly surprised when I later discovered that both BellyBuds and SoundBub have the capability to play voice recordings through WavHello’s VoiceShare app. This has quickly become one of our favorite features. With grandparents that live across the country we can record their voices and play them for both our toddler and baby-on-the-way. The grandparents love this feature too! As with most grandparents, they aren’t the most tech-savvy, but the VoiceShare app is easy for them to use to record messages and bedtime stories. We simply send them an email through the app and they can record messages and our son’s favorite stories, then he can listen on his Ollie-the-Owl SoundBub while the baby listens through BellyBuds. One of our son’s favorite things to do when his grandparents come to visit is read stories with them. It is nice for them to still be able to do this even when they are far away. It also gives my wife a little break from reading our toddlers favorite stories over and over again. As much as I love my son, we can only handle so much Green Eggs and Ham.

With a toddler and another baby on the way, having the ability to record voices using VoiceShare is great! It has been fun watching my wife and son record lullabies through the VoiceShare app as well. The music plays and they sing karaoke-style, then we play it through BellyBuds for the baby.

Our journey with BellyBuds, SoundBub and VoiceShare has brought our family closer together in so many ways: from connecting with far away family, to introducing a big brother to his new favorite person, and even helping us keep some of our parental sanity in tact. Now, with baby number two on the way, we are looking forward to already having these tools in place to help enrich the life of our new little one, and our entire family. 

By: Rick Nazar, Family Entourage