Goodnight Music for Kids.
We’re a music family, in fact, before my kids could figure out velcro shoes, they we making playlists on Spotify.
And, bedtime tunes are no exception, and I am here to show you lullabies come in all shapes in sounds. From old standards to mainstream artists, kid’s songs aren’t just about puppets and sound effects anymore.
Here’s a sneak peek at our bedtime playlist.
(Confession: I listen to it just as much as the kids!)
What gets your children off to dreamland?
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Brittany Gibbons is a professional humorist, eater, TED speaker and jean hoarder. She is the co-founder of the women's lifestyle magazine, Curvy Girl Guide, as well as co-owner of its parent company, Mouth Media. Brittany resides amongst the cornfields of rural Ohio with her husband and three small children. (I know, she totally doesn’t look old enough to have three kids, right?!) 
“lullaby” by Billy Joel “Blackbird” the Beatles “Golden Slumbers” kd Lang
TMBG and O Brother are on our list too. “Down to the River to Pray” is our O Brother song. My oldest could sing it by the time he was 3. I mean, he sang it badly because he was basing it on my singing. But still. Love your list!
My Dad used to play the James Taylor Greatest Hits album to get my sister and I to fall asleep when we were younger. Sweet Baby James is one of my favorite songs and it’s what he and I danced to at my wedding (my husband had our band learn the song just so my Dad and I could dance to it <3) It makes me tear up all the time :) My future children will be listening to that album one day when they're trying to go to sleep.
Pretty much anything by Sigur Rós.
My kids fall asleep to music every single night. One of our favorites is the Kenny G Christmas album. We listen to it all year long, not just in December. My kids really love it.
Also, I <3 They Might Be Giants!
“Goodnight My Angel” by Billy Joel. I got the book and cd when my little one was born and we still love reading and listening at night!
My girls all love Little Miss Magic by Jimmy Buffett.
They are not lullabies, but Stella loves anything by Coldplay. Ever since she was a baby, she would calm down listening to Coldplay, and fall sleep while Fix You (from X&Y) played on the stereo :-)
Now that she is older, she just asks me to pop the cd in :-)
Twinkle Twinkle Little Rock Star they make “lullaby versions” of main stream music. ex: Journey, Pink, Coldplay, Duran Duran etc…
Every song on the CD “Return to Pooh Corner” by Kenny Loggins.
“Didn’t Leave Nobody but the Baby” is one of my favorite songs EVER. It’s soooo beautiful. I need to check this out, because my son’s starting to tell me to stop singing to his before he goes to bed.
Fisher Price Tender Lullabies… love love love that cd. my baby girl (now 3) has been listening to it nightly since she was born, and my baby boy (now 15mo) does too.
Our family is a big fan of the Rockabye Baby series. Our little guy (he’s 1) listens to it nightly since we brought him home. He loves it and so do we. There’s a good variety so you don’t get bored and with it being music that we know, you don’t go crazy and want to rip out your eardrums.
When my girls were very little, Nicolette Larson’s “Sleep, Baby, Sleep” was played every night, especially “Oh Bear”. This is by far the best CD of lullabies. Once my girls were older, we moved on to the B-52′s, Banarama, and Jack Johnson to name a few.
“Baby Cloud” by Caspar Babypants. Before this it was “Solar Flare” by Glenn Phillips.
Elizabeth Mitchell is also great for sleepy songs, we also love Bob Marley and there is a Dixie Chicks song that makes me cry every time I hear it…but I can’t remember the name of it.
The coolest gift I got when our daughter was born is that our very musically diverse friends who had the best collection of children’s music burned copies of all the CD’s they had and sent them to me. These were our go-to’s for bedtime.
1. Lullabies for Little Dreamers. She heard this one so much that I could use this to get her to go to sleep by turning it on.
2. Dreamland: World lullabies
3. Lullabies of Latin America – this one is cool because the songs all play in Spanish and then in English