--- title: Science Has Designed a Song to Make Your Baby Happy description: If you had to write a hit for babies, what would it sound like? Child experts, and a Grammy-winning composer, teamed up to make it happen. canonical: https://time.com/4662282/babies-laugh-music-kids-science-happy-song/ author: Feliz Solomon article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-02-07T09:43:18.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:40:52.893Z og:title: Science Has Designed a Song to Make Your Baby Happy og:description: Child experts and a Grammy Award-winning composer have produced 'The Happy Song' og:url: https://time.com/4662282/babies-laugh-music-kids-science-happy-song/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Science Has Designed a Song to Make Your Baby Happy twitter:description: Child experts and a Grammy Award-winning composer have produced 'The Happy Song' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Science Has Designed a Song to Make Your Baby Laugh With Pleasure by [Feliz Solomon](https://time.com/author/feliz-solomon/) ## Feliz Solomon Feb 7, 2017 9:43 AM UTC by [Feliz Solomon](https://time.com/author/feliz-solomon/) ## Feliz Solomon Feb 7, 2017 9:43 AM UTC Experts have teamed up to [answer a question](https://theconversation.com/we-created-a-song-that-makes-babies-happy-72309) that any parent wishing to soothe or amuse a little one would appreciate the answer to: What kind of music do babies like? Caspar Addyman, an expert in child development, and Lauren Stewart, a musical psychologist, were asked by [U.K. baby food manufacturer Cow & Gate](http://www.cowandgate.co.uk/) to analyze existing science about infant preferences in order come up with the ideal parameters for a baby-friendly pop hit—one that was “proven to make babies happy.” After extensive research, the two hired Grammy-winning composer and vocalist Imogen Heap — formerly of the synth-pop duo Frou Frou and mother to an 18-month-old girl — to put together a melody following some ground rules: it had to be in a major key, be simple and repetitive, and have a broad range of dynamics to keep the baby surprised and tuned in. The song also had to be uptempo, mirroring a baby’s heartbeat, which is faster than a human’s, and it had to have a lively female vocal track, “ideally recorded in the presence of an actual baby.” Previous studies have shown that babies tend to be partial to the sing-song tones that women often use around infants. “The secret was to make it silly and make it social,” Addyman say, so they surveyed Cow & Gate customers to find out which sounds made their babies laugh. Heap then packed in as many of the sounds as she could, like “beep beep!” and “whee!” and other noises that babies love. The result was _The Happy Song_. Did it work? Watch the full music video above and find out. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4662282/babies-laugh-music-kids-science-happy-song/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4662282/babies-laugh-music-kids-science-happy-song/"},"headline":"Science Has Designed a Song to Make Your Baby Laugh With Pleasure","datePublished":"2017-02-07T09:43:18.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:40:52.893Z","description":"Child experts fed the criteria to a Grammy Award-winning composer, who came up with The Happy Song","url":"https://time.com/4662282/babies-laugh-music-kids-science-happy-song/","keywords":["Living","Newsfeed","Family","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Feliz Solomon","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/feliz-solomon/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4662282/babies-laugh-music-kids-science-happy-song/","name":"Science Has Designed a Song to Make Your Baby Laugh With Pleasure"}}]}] ```