How to Sing to your Child (and Not Sound Like an Idiot)
July 28, 2008 by Geoff Manning Comments (3)
For the first month of my daughter’s life, I pretty much fudged the words to every song I sang to her. Each one was sung with ‘monkey-butt’ or ‘little bear’ (our nickname for her) substituted as I had no clue what the real words were. Who does, the last time we heard those songs we were two!
Well it’s time to admit defeat and do a little research! Google is always a great place to start to research anything. Here is a good link to begin your search for nursery rhymes and also lullabies. The selection of sites is pretty scarce, but I am using Zelo.com for my nursery rhyme song lyrics info.
Here is a list of our favorites:
The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching one by one,
The little one stops to suck his thumb
And they all go marching down to the ground
To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!…
History: This song/chant was popular during the Civil War and is sung to the tune “When Johnny comes Marching Home.”
One little, two little, three little Indians
Four little, five little, six little Indians
Seven little, eight little, nine little Indians
Ten little Indian boys.
This old man, he played one,
He played knick knack with his thumb,
With a Knick, knack, paddy whack,
Give the dog a bone;
This old man came rolling home.…
I think these songs are really soothing for her because they are very rhythmic, repetitive and without a lot of highs and lows. These reasons also allow you to sing your child to sleep without sounding like an idiot!
Photo Credit: hyperbolic pants explosion
My daughter loves “The Ants Go Marching”! We have it on a CD that we listen to on the way to daycare every morning. She only tolerates me singing for a few moments…after that she’ll say “No - only I sing”.
I don’t dare sing or play “The Ants Go Marching” during off sleepy time hours! At least not until it loses it’s power
I swear she is out by “The Ants go marching Five by Five” every time!
Great song ideas. I had forgotten about them all. We have the following songs in our list for our 1 year old Aaron:
- You Are My Sunshine
- Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
- Rockabye Baby
- Hey Diddle Diddle
- Itsy Bitsy Spider
- Hickory Dickory Dock
But his all time favorite. . . (cue the laughter) Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. We started singing this too him over the holidays last year and now it is really the only song that will soothe him when he is out of control hysterical.