So I’ve mentioned once or twice that we prefer a more eclectic selection of pre-bed singing to Noah.
(And formerly to Ali, but she’s way too mature for such a thing now.)
Because you can only sing their requests of “Dora Dora Dora the Explorer” so many days in a row before you start to crave some actual lyrics. And even the more thoughtful ones, “Thomas and his Friends” and “Hey Hey Hey Have a Henry Hugglemonster Day” can really ruin a naptime for Mommy if they get stuck in her head.
(Perhaps this is all more of a reflection that our kids need to be exposed to more real children’s music and less cartoon theme songs, but that’s an argument for another day.)
(And I’ve fought long and hard for car radio control and am not ready to relinquish my grip again.)
Anyway.
So Chris’ lineup usually includes The Eagles, James Taylor, The Lion Sleeps Tonight, and perhaps a “Yay Alabama” fight song thrown in for good measure. Mine is a little more variant, including selections from REM, Gotye, Kanye West, Michael W Smith, TLC, The Lone Bellow, The Presidents of the United States of America, the ever-present yet reluctant rendition of Thomas and His Friends, and The Cranberries.
What can I say? I believe in diversification.
But then. One blessed night, we struck gold and discovered my favorite lullaby of all time. Chris sang the first line, and I recognized its perfection – the belting-out quality of the tune, its cheery-depressionistic attitude, and lyrics that every child and parent needed to hear at bedtime or naptime. So I finished rewriting the important parts, and have since rocked Noah with it every sleep since. You might recognize it – it’s a slightly modified version of everyone’s favorite Christmas song to hate.
And one day, when we create “Parentz Bop,” this will be on it, along with Ironic, With Children.
Here’s the naptime rendition…
So this is Naptime
And what have you done
Another day over
And a new fight just begun
And so this is Naptime
I hope I have fun
The near and the dear one
Cause naptime’s for moms.
A very merry Naptime
And a happy dream too,
Let’s hope it’s a good one,
Without any poo.
Morn is over,
Morn is over,
Morn is over,
Go to sleep…
A very merry Naptime
And a happy dream too,
Let’s hope it’s a good one,
Without any poo.
You must sing it at your loudest to understand how unbelievably therapeutic it is – I’ll wait here.
Now that you’re finished with that, it’s your turn. What do/did/will you sing to your kids? Songs, Artists, or Genres – you pick how specific you want to be. Admit it to the world – and if enough of you participate, perhaps we’ll have data aplenty for an official study and a pretty pie graph. And you know how happy that would make me.
Rocking, Rocking, Rocking to and fro. Rocking, Rocking Nolan loves it so. Then you can go on, and on with every member of your family until baby falls asleep.
My now 5 year old always wanted me to sing Cotton Fields.
Other favorites include, This land is your land. My Jesus I love Thee. I want to hold your hand and I saw her standing there, by the Beatles.
We used to sing a lot of Beatles songs to our kids to get them to sleep. Yellow Submarine was a favorite.
I sing Yellow Submarine, too – and lots of Christmas Carols, regardless of the time of year, because I remember those and sometimes it’s easy to change the lyrics (“Here in a cradle, soft sheets on her bed, the little babe Willow lays down her sweet head…”). Also patriotic songs too, for no particular reason, like “God bless America.” and when the kids were babies and I got really desperate I’d resort to old camp songs sung very slowly, like “The Bear Went Over the Mountain.” Those don’t work as well once kids are old enough to understand the lyrics though – a giggling 3-year-old does not fall asleep easily :)
Love the new lullaby! I will have to sing it to my nephews. My nephews have a cd I made them that we sing along to it includes
-I can’t help falling in love with you, Elvis
-Puff the magic dragon
-Lullaby, Billy Joel
-Never alone, Lady antebellum
-Amazing Grace
-The Rainbow Connection
other songs by Sarah Maclaughlin, James Taylor, Michael W Smith, U2
That’s awesome! (And wow, that is a *really* depressing Christmas song.) I don’t have kids to sing to, but one of my dogs seems to enjoy it when I sing to him, if that counts. ;)
I passed on the singing – since ours are past the singing phase, I’ll just assume you’ve composed the perfect lullaby.
I sang:
Froggy went a’ courtin’
A Bushel and a Peck
Mares eat Oats
I will say that now Will is all about some Veggie Tales songs, which warms my heart. However, he’s not interested in my variations of them.
I sang to my nephews when they were little. The first song I ever sang to both of them was “Power of Two” by the Indigo Girls.
Haha!! I love it! I’m not very creative so I just sing hymns. “Come Thou Fount” is always the one that calms him down the fastest. I also sing “Nothing But the Blood” & “Jesus Loves Me”. Those aren’t very original bedtime song selections but we love it!
Well, my brother-in-law is amused that “All the pretty little ponies” seems to be encoded into the DNA of my family, since that is the lullaby both my sister and I default to. Lots of random Music Together songs, folk songs, etc wander through the repretoir.
Like you, I also tend to make up little songs to get through the day, though they very rarely scan or rhyme appropriately. But I was rather proud the other day at my “please, please, just find your shoes already’ song – “Oh where, oh where have my little shoes gone. Oh where oh where could they be? I find them and then I put them on, and now I’m ready to leave.”
Love it! My 2 year old daughter has to be rocked and sung to before naps and bedtime. Our song selection used to include such varied hits as Twinkle, Twinkle, Hey Jude, and Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. Then I made the mistake of singing Jingle Bells one afternoon. Now it’s all she wants to hear…for a minimum of 10 minutes…twice a day…and it’s only September. Mommy might accidently “forget” the lyrics one of these days :-)
See? That’s the problem with kids. They really know how to run something beautiful into the ground until you hate it with all of your soul. :-)
Since you mentioned Presidents of the United States of America, I instantly thought of Caspar Babypants. The lead singer of the band does kids songs now, and they’re quite tolerable! His albums end with a few slow songs that are great for calming my son down. He does free concerts around Seattle in the summer. There’s nothing quite like a mosh pit of 2-5 year olds at a Caspar Babypants concert…
I have only vaguely heard of this! I must check it out!
I alternate between the good old fashioned Sunday School songs and worship songs. I’m not that creative so it’s usually whatever I heard last on the radio. :)
We have to do a few Disney Jr. theme songs at times as well, but some of the others we have been known for are:
Edelweiss
Black Socks (they never get dirty, the longer you wear them, the blacker they get…)
How much is that doggy in the window
Bushel and a Peck
The blasted “Barney Song” – I love you, you love me…
The hubs’ favorite one to sing is “He stopped loving her today…” (?)
Sweet Adoration
Arms of Love
All the pretty little ponies
Baby Mine
Oh, and I have made up a song for each of them… not really on purpose, just from the hours of walking and humming from the early weeks :)
…and I left off his VERY favorite… “Jesus Loves Me” – can’t forget that one!
The last line is my favorite.
Jarrod tends toward 80’s rock and Disney songs. I tend to do children’s songs and Ice Ice Baby because they’re the only songs I can remember ALL the lyrics to off the top of my head. I get really annoyed if I start to sing a song and can’t remember all the lyrics.
I also just sing whatever we’ve done all day long to whatever tune fits. Jarrod, on the other hand, is really good about actually rhyming. He sang about me playing Candy Crush to a Katy Perry song once.
I’m so jealous of people who can write songs easily – Chris is amazing at it, too! I kinda wanna hear his Candy Crush Katy Perry song. ;-)
We sing hymns. There is a band called page cxvi and they have redone a bunch of old hymns, so they’re usually in their rendition. My daughter usually asks for Jesus Loves Me every night too. And then we recite the book of Philippians word for word…… Just kidding.
The only songs I can remember the lyrics to are the good old hymns and even those I fade out on so it is usually humming the hymns. Blessed Assurance, Trust and Obey, old Rugged Cross, Great is Thy Faithfulness, Amazing Grace. Old Sunday School songs, Jesus Loves me, Jesus loves the little children, he has the whole world in his hands,, Zacchaeus, and not Sunday School but Rock a by Baby.and Winnie The Pooh (which I can ever remember the words to so I just end up singing his name over and over again alternating with my daughters name)
My daughter is now 13 and I ask her if she remembers me singing to her. She does not but I like to think those old hymns provided a blessing.
Winnie the pooh. Winnie the pooh. Tubby little chubby all stuffed with fluff, he’s Winnie the pooh. Winnie the pooh. Willy nilly silly old bear. Lol. We sing this also.
I was a voice major and have taught children’s music for years…so this is a big deal to me. Our nightly routine is:
“God is So Good.”
“My favorite things”
and “My Jesus, I love thee.”
My husband sings “When I first saw you” from Dreamgirls to them, and we sing “May the Mind of Christ my Savior” in the mornings. We also sing our prayers at meals. We play music and sing/dance throughout the day. Favorite non-kids music: Ben Folds, Adele, Imagine Dragons, Steppenwolf’s “Magic Carpet Ride”, etc.
Other awesom lullabies: “Neverland” from Peter Pan Musical, and “Hushabye Mountain” from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. “All the pretty little horses.” and “Carrickfergus” are pretty, too.
Children’s cds: SLUGS BUGS AND LULLABIES!!!! (all caps, extra punctuation!!!!) Also, Coal Train Railroad is stellar. Rain for Roots is good, too, but Slugs and Coal Train are awesome. Fun, and you don’t want to gouge your eye out with a fork when they’re on constant repeat.
We had an Alabama mobile in his nursery that played Yea Alabama, so when he was little that is what I would hum to him at night. (Me singing would inspire nightmares instead!)
He also loves JImmy Buffett, probably because that’s what played most often in the car. He has actually been to two of his concerts already. His first was the one on the beach when he was three. (He slept through part of that one.) We flew to Jacksonville last February for a concert/Legoland trip that was part of his Christmas gift. He sang and danced along to everything to the very end!
After our recent Disney cruise, and summer camp, he has picked up on some of the popular ‘Pop Music’ songs too.
I must be way out of touch. I cannot figure out which Christmas song that is.
Ha! It was called Happy Xmas (War is Over) by John Lennon. Super depressing but also catchy.
Ben Folds, “God Speed” by the Dixie Chicks, Rainbow Connection and several Children’s hymns from my church. (“I am a Child of God” is a favorite)