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"Wherever you go in the world, women use the same tones, the same sort of way of singing to their babies," she says. Many lullabies are very basic, she notes, with just a few words repeated again and again. Rhythmically, there are shared patterns too. Lullabies are usually in triple metre or 6/8 time, giving them a "characteristic swinging or rocking motion," says Sally Goddard Blythe. This is soothing because it mimics the movement a baby experiences in the womb as a mother moves. []