I can't guarantee it's as easy as pressing a button, but as a DJ and a dad, here’s my selection of chill-out numbers to help both of you relax - if just for a while.
Playschool, The Wiggles, Justine Clarke, The Muppets, Yo Gabba Gabba and friends all play fantastic music for babies and toddlers. You’ve probably been gifted several albums from these superstars already – so you’ll know just how high energy they tend to be. But what if you want to chill?
As a DJ, I’ve made loads of mixtapes for my kids. When my daughter was a newborn, I dug through my music collection looking for tracks that could help our bundle of refusing-to-sleep-joy chill out for a bit – who knows, maybe even SLEEP???
Here’s what I unearthed:
Start with the classics: well old-school, well chilled
I’d heard of the mind-altering Mozart effect, which claims the great composer’s music turbo-charges kids’ IQs. While the science on this is a bit sketchy, (and apparently Beethoven is just as good), I’d still recommend calm classical tunes as a starting base.
Slow and soothing is what we’re looking for here, something to softly nudge your newborn into a nice, deep NREM cycle.
Of course, Brahm’s Lullaby is the bedtime sleep bomb of choice – as evidenced by video of a dad knocking his kid out with this number in sub-10 seconds. Pure gold!
The bearded piano master has also uploaded a free easy to follow tutorial if you happen to have a keyboard or piano lying around and are that way inclined.
Whether you prefer to press play, or play the keys – Too much of any one track will eventually do your head in. So here’s a few alternative baby bedtime compilations from the classical masters:
The Baby Einstein range from Disney is great, featuring music by Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. Other relaxing options for bub include Beethoven for Babies: Brain Training for Little Ones, Classic FM babies and Music for Dreaming, featuring the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
Café del mama, papa: a playlist for bedtime
When you move from the classics to the contemporary, you need to tread a path between wanky chillout music and some of the weird, twisted psychedelic stuff that’s out there.
Here’s my choice of tracks and albums that worked wonders with my kids when it was time to send bub into a slumber.
A gorgeous cover by alt-rock/folk band The Innocence Mission, whose biggest album Now the Day is Over is loaded with downtempo delights for babies and parents alike, including What a Wonderful World and Moon River.
Apparently this drifty dreamer by Marconi Union qualifies as the most relaxing tune ever, which is exactly the result they wanted when they collaborated with sound therapists in 2011.
Calm. Sleep: Ex-raver, ex-vegan, ex-teetotaller, ex-advertising-soundtrack writer Moby is a master of sensual chords (the Jam and Spoon in dub mix of Moby’s early hit Go is a must-have in any after-hours collection). He says he wrote this album because “over the last couple of years, I’ve been making really, really, really quiet music to listen to when I do yoga or sleep or meditate or panic. I ended up with four hours of music and have decided to give it away”.
An amazing eight-hour-long lullaby by modern classical British composer Max Richter that is regularly played on Kinderling (an Aussie radio station for kids and parents) over night and was performed by Richter in full at Sydney’s Opera House in 2015.
Songs to Help My Children Sleep:
Once upon a time, there was a Scottish indie band called the Cocteau Twins who made magical music for pashing. Then they broke up.
Years later, guitarist Robin Guthrie made this brilliant ambient album that’s just as good as This Love, a melancholy love song written by movie music composer Craig Armstrong and featuring ex-Cocteau Twins singer Elizabeth Frazer.
A lush acoustic/electronic debut by Norwegian band Flunk, including a brilliant cover version of New Order’s Blue Monday. It’s maybe more suited for wake-up time, though a great way to ease into the day.
This one isn’t so much a chill track as a number for you to bop to with bub on a Sunday afternoon. A session track by dub and ambient-legends The Orb that brilliantly samples jazz/rock singer Ricki Lee Jones waxing whimsical about the skies that went on forever in her childhood.
Of course, your mileage may vary on each of these – so expect a bit of trial and error along the way. Some of my dad mates report surprising success rates playing the likes of Metallica and Tool, so experiment, you never know.
A word of caution before you go digging into your personal record collection: Be prepared to hear the winning number a few hundred times over.
Nothing knocks the gloss off a favourite song than having it stuck on repeat for a few hours a day.