After spending nearly all night last night trying to comfort a less than happy baby I'm still fighting waves of sleepiness right now. Not being able to get a wink of sleep until four in the morning has a way of draining me.
I love rocking Lil' Buddy though and singing lullabies to him. Some that my Mom used to sing and I had totally forgotten until I find myself started to sing them while trying to comfort the baby.
I love lullabies. Some sweet and gentle, others on the more humorous side. Our children's favorite was and is an old Pennsylvania Dutch lullaby about a group of rabbits sitting in the yard and what they are saying about the baby. That one is fun to sing to a toddler more than a newborn and I find myself crooning Hush my babe lie still and slumber, most of all.
To all you parents out there. What were some of your favorite lullabies?
Hush little baby, don't you cry ... & ... Rock a Bye.
ReplyDeleteMother never would sing but would hum to us kids.
I remember singing Rock A Bye to Joshua & every time I did he'd start crying ... afraid to wonder if it is my voice or the song .... ???
Have a beautiful weekend ~
TTFN ~
Marydon
If a dad may chime in...
ReplyDelete"Dreamland" by Mary Chapin Carpenter
"Child of Mine" by Bill Staines
The first song my son fell asleep to (that I sang - he is adopted)was "My Bonnie Lays Over the Ocean." My daughter always loved "Let Me Call You Sweetheart."
ReplyDeleteMy favorite song that had sung over and over to our grandson as a baby, is "Jesus loves me."
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed singing these songs as lullabies to my children: Jesus Loves Me; I Am A Promise; My Father's Angels(All Protect Me Everywhere); You're Special, God Made You; and when I was too tired to think the ABC Song.
ReplyDeleteSang Jacobs Ladder, Rocka my Soul in the Busom of Abraham, Down in the Valley and Rock a bye Baby to my kids when they were younger. My dad taught us Found a Peanut and if you sing it soft enough it has enough verses to put a little one to sleep. Good memories!
ReplyDeleteI used to sing the song "Everything's alright' from Jesus Christ Superstar to my kids. Mind you, that was a long time ago... the oldest one turned 20 a couple of days ago!
ReplyDeletehttp://dancingwithfrogs.com
I used to sing "Rock-a-Bye Baby", only I didn't like the words, so I changed them:
ReplyDeleteRock-a-bye baby
On the tree top
When the wind blows,
The cradle will rock.
Wind of the Spirit
Sent from above.
It's Jesus who loves you,
God's little dove.
They're not exactly lullabies, but my son loved "You are my sunshine" and "I had a little nut tree". My daughter just liked singing - she'd have been just as happy with "Twist and Shout" as with a lullaby.
ReplyDeleteKnitwit, I really like your revised version of Rock-a-Bye Baby! I will be using it now to sing to Lil' Buddy.
ReplyDeleteThere's also a (probably much older) verse to Rock-a-bye-baby:
ReplyDeleteRock a bye, baby,
Thy cradle is green
Daddy's a nobleman
Mama's a queen
Betty's a lady and wears a gold ring
And Johnny's a drummer and drums for the king.
My husband said he thought this described a fairly sketchy relationship between Daddy, Mama, and the king.
The one that seemed to soothe my babies the most was,
ReplyDelete"Go to sleep, my little baby.
Soon you'll wake
and pat a pat-a-cake
and ride a stripe-ed little po-ny."
My mother sang the same to my sisters and I when we were babies.
Praying that you and baby get lots of sleep tonight!
Good-night My Someone from The Music Man.
ReplyDeleteI always sang "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" and "You Are My Sunshine". Nothing better that a sleeping baby in your armes. I sure do miss those days.....
ReplyDeleteMy daddy made up one and I can hear the tune still 42 years later, but not all the words. "Just close your little eyes and go to sleepy-sleep..."
ReplyDeleteThat was the end of it.
I miss my Daddy still.
My oldest grandson lived with my husband and I exclusively for most of his first 13 months. His mother, our daughter, was getting her life in order. It was an odd time to be almost fifty with an infant to raise again. I used to sing "itsy bitsy spider" to him. I sang it alot. Now, living and thriving in his mothers care, he still spends alot of time with us. If he's having a moment or I need his attention for anything, I can sing "itsy bitsy spider" and he stops what he's doing and looks at me and smiles. Its a silly little song, but my permanent tie to him.
ReplyDeleteWe would always sing "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" and we'd put "Buddy" in there instead of Bonnie. That still makes me smile thinking of that because Adam would smile every time we sang that to him. I also sang "You are my Sunshine". LOL - great idea to change the words to rockabye baby - never realized how bizarre that song is!! Nothing like singing a lullaby to the baby and having him fall asleep to a song about falling out of a tree in his crib. EEK! That kind of makes me laugh thinking about how I never thought about it. :)
ReplyDeleteWith my 5 children, and the grandchildren too, my favorites were "Jesus Loves Me", "All the Pretty Little Horses" and "Morningtown Ride". It seems to be that my 'lullabye button' is pushed whenever I hold a wee one. I soon find myself singing "Hush a bye, don't you cry...go to sleep my little baby. When you wake, you shall have all the pretty little horses. " I hope little Buddy will be more compassionate to Mama in future nights and choose his snuggling time during the daylight hours. Poor little Buddy!
ReplyDeleteHow lovely to think of my lullabies, again! I had a few opportunities to sing them to my two granddaughters and remembered the words my mom sang to me :-) She learned cute little songs when she was a school girl, some with no known origin. My favorite seasonal one was
ReplyDelete"Dandelions"
Dan-de-lions, Dan-de-lions
What golden stars are you;
Shining in the meadow grasses
sparkling with the dew.
Did you shine up yonder, dears,
all the whole night through?
And then come dancing
down with the sun
because little "Peggy"
loves you!
But mostly, my favorites were hymns. I can still feel her rocking me in the wicker rocker singing all the verses to "Jesus Loves Me", "Rock of Ages", "In the Garden", " What a Friend We Have in Jesus." ... and others.
Praying you and your baby to sleep tonight.
My grandmother and my Dad sang this to me. I sang to my children, grandchildren and great-grands. It has a beautiful, soothing melody, but such a sad, song -- "Babes In The Woods."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/song-midis/Babes_in_the_Wood_2.htm
attributed it to Rob. Tarrington, 1601,
From Ozark Folksongs, Randolph, Collected from Marie Wilbur, Pineville MO 1929
When my oldest was born in early Dec of 1993 I sang Silent Night to her at the hospital. To this day when Silent Night is played or sung she has a hard time not yawning. I also sang "I will call upon the Lord, Who is worthy to be Praised" I walked the hall of our trailer with her singing both of these over and over while she had colic and fussed.
ReplyDeleteIt's not a lullaby, but both my boys have been soothed and rocked to sleep to "Can't Help Falling in Love". They are 3 and 5 now and that song still calms them down. And they love Elvis.
ReplyDeleteI'm an Elvis fan and it was one of few songs I could remember all the words to in the middle of the night, exhausted with a newborn. The boys think of it as 'their song' now.
Our son was 4 when we adopted him, so didn't get to sing "lullabies", but I did sing with him a lot. One of my favorite melodies is the Skye Boat Song, which I think makes a nice "going-to-sleep" song. It's a very old, Scottish tune with a history behind it. Most of the words have to do with war/persecution, so not exactly "baby friendly", but the tune is lovely for humming and I really like the chorus:
ReplyDeleteSpeed, bonnie boat,
like a bird on the wing,
Onward! the sailors cry;
Carry the lad
that's born to be King
Over the sea to Skye
There are several versions of this that can be heard on YouTube & Celtic Thunder has done it, although I could not find their recording of it.
I so enjoy you blog & remembering what young family life is like!
My favorite as a child was "Hush Little Baby". I am told I said "bully" instead of "billy" goat. Leave it to a kid to add humor without even trying :)
ReplyDeleteI made up songs for my girls. One was:
ReplyDeleteWhen Tina grows up, then who will she marry?
Will is be Peter or Steven or Harry?
When Tina grows up, the who will she wed?
Will is be Patrick or Michael or Fred?
Will is be David or Andrew or Joe?
Until she gets big, I guess we won't know.
I also made up a song about the house at the end of the lane. There must have been others, but I found that reciting the Gettysburg Address has a nice soothing cadence to it. Our girls were surprised to discover I hadn't made that up, too!
Each of my children had their own lullabies. The oldest's was 'Hush Little Baby' the second went "when you are king, Dilly, Dilly, I shall be queen" , but I don't remember the name. The third baby's was 'Sleep, Baby, Sleep'. My fourth was born when my oldest was a teenager so she did most of the singing. She used to sing him a modern alternative song. He's three years old now and my teenager loves to randomly start singing it to him and watch him stop what he's doing as his eyelids grow heavy and his head begins to nod.
ReplyDelete