Lullaby Hour
Gentle live music can transform a hospital environment, bringing a sense of calm to an often daunting and stressful situation. Our award-winning Lullaby Hour offers babies, children and their parents or carers the chance to experience peaceful songs and melodies. Our Lullaby Hour professional musicians create special moments and memories for families in hospital wards, neonatal units and hospices.
Did you know?
- Music can reduce babies’ heart rates and help them to sleep deeper. This can help babies that are seriously ill to spend less time in hospital.[1]
- Research shows that live music can help babies that are seriously ill to feel less stressed and that it increases their oxygen levels. This also helped premature babies to double their daily weight.[2]
- Feedback received from parents and staff found:
- 96% of parents of seriously ill babies found that our Lullaby Hour live music experience enhanced the time they spent with their baby
- 85% of parents of seriously ill babies felt less stressed and anxious, and noticed the same in their baby, following our Lullaby Hour live music experience
“[The musician] made us feel at ease with the soothing sound of her voice and gentle and calming guitar melodies. For that short moment in time I felt transported away from the neonatal unit and didn’t for a second worry about the numbers on the monitor or what the doctors had to say. An experience I will treasure.”
Parent at Stepping Hill Hospital, Stockport
BBC News at Newcastle Freeman Hospital
“Charlie is now thriving since he received his new heart earlier this year. I know that Lullaby Hour was a beautiful and welcome distraction to the sounds and strange noises coming from the machinery on the wards, and helped with his recovery. The lullabies gave everyone great comfort and a sense of peace. Charlie’s riveted little face, when Claire sang to him, was wonderful to see in what were some of his darkest hours.”
Kate, Charlie’s Auntie
When parents and families from the Children’s Heart Unit at Freeman Hospital in Newcastle experienced Lullaby Hour, they enjoyed it so much they wanted to recreate it at home. So we put together ‘Sweet Dreams – A Collection of Traditional Lullabies’. You can download the digital album of 10 lullabies sung by Claire Tustin and Jeremy Bradfield from Bandcamp. All proceeds support Lullaby Hour in hospitals and hospices across the UK.
“The babies spend all day with the background noise of alarms, different voices and noises, and being handled with gloves. Lullaby Hour is a perfect opportunity for mums and babies to have a moment of soothing sounds.”
Parent at St Peter’s Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Chertsey
Read about ICU Hear®, our award-winning programme using live music to improve care in high dependency and intensive care units.
Make a donation
Please give today to help improve the health and wellbeing of children and adults through the healing power of live music.
