Now in an updated fourth edition Sue Doherty, anthropologist and author of the pioneering, practical book, Kinergetics: Dancing with Your Baby (1994), offers must-have cutting-edge research, advice, and insight. A groundbreaking look into the art and science of song, dance, and melodies - and their profoundly nurturing, therapeutic, and developmental effects for infants and caregivers. It is an unprecedented, eye-opening investigation into our evolutionary instinct to rock a baby in our arms. 

An inspiring and easily accessible guide exploring the expressive heartbeat of human nature. Discovering a baby’s amazing capacities reveal how music and movement has helped shape humanity across cultures and throughout history. From acquiring language acquisition to learning to self-regulate, a baby makes impressive gains socially, emotionally, physically, and cognitively, when engaging with the rhythms of his or her surroundings. Doherty provides a convincing synthesis of current scientific evidence to promote a deeply immersive and stimulating physical engagement. She introduces the reader to various “carriages” to dance freely with a baby, and with the use of a baby carrier. There are chapters on bonding and the importance of touch, stress reduction in baby and caregiver, specific recommendations for babies with special needs, tips on necessary back-care, and tai chi and yoga for warm-up and cool-down. 

Doherty offers parents and caregivers fascinating science that spans infant development, child psychology, neuroscience, cultural anthropology, music and movement therapy, and much more. And, as Julia Dimitrova and Michael Hogan argue in their Psychology Today review: “The book will also be of interest to psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and educationalists interested in dancing toward greater insight and understanding of human development.”