sleep well (sleep fast!)

For mommies and daddies around the world, music tends to play a very important role in the nightly duties. Grandma's songs, rhymes, folk songs, just random strings of words. Anything and everything will be tried to make the little monsters (angels?) sleep!

In our house, we have used a combination of singing (mostly by the out-of-tune mommy) and playing something from iTunes and/or You Tube (mostly by the tech-savvy daddy). In my mental perfect-mommy-world, the plan was to get the little one so attuned to sleeping on a particular song that the minute he heard those familiar strings, his eyes would grow heavy and before he (we) knew it, he would just be fast asleep.

Alas, babies never figure out the grand plans and conspiracies that grown-ups want to shower them with.

Over the past 22 months, he has managed to convert the following unlikely contenders into successful lullabies - the classic Bollywood refrain of Lakdi ki Kathi, the peppy beats of Sunny Sunny by Yo Yo Honey Singh (eeks!), Phillip Phillips crooning Gone Gone Gone, the classics like if you're happy and you know it or the A-B-C song, the recent dance party anthem - Kar Gayi Chull, John Denver's Leaving on a Jetplane, random nursery rhymes like Five Little Ducks or Hickory Dickory Dock, and even the funky rock of Cake's Short Skirt Long Jacket, among many other (equally confounding) choices. We've also managed a few times with a simple google search for "music to make a baby sleep" - which in fact yields some interesting instrumental videos on You Tube. (I use the word "interesting" rather liberally.. the first time we put on such a video, daddy and mommy were nearly asleep with baby wide awake!)

But they're all so different! Which one will work on any particular night, you might ask. Well, my theory is that an effective lullaby basically needs familiarity and repetition. The music can be of any genre, the beats or words just need to be on a loop; and eventually it just becomes background noise that pushes the little one into la-la land (hopefully before the parents get there themselves!).

What works (or has worked) with your little one?