Singing Mariah Carey Always Be My Baby Lullaby

It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday in 2017, and I was sweating through a gray David Bowie t-shirt that had questionable yellow spit-up crusted on the left shoulder, trying desperately to remember what you're actually supposed to buy if that damn mockingbird won't sing. A diamond ring? A looking glass? A billy goat? Oh god, I was pacing the narrow hallway of our cramped apartment wearing those horrific, giant mesh hospital underwear, trying to force Leo, my then-newborn, to sleep by aggressively whispering traditional nursery rhymes at him because I thought that’s what Good Mothers did.

Don't do this. If you take literally nothing else from my twelve years of parenting and writing about parenting, please just let go of the idea that you need to perform 18th-century folklore to an angry infant in the middle of the night just because some book told you to create a "soothing traditional environment."

I was so tense my shoulders were basically touching my ears, and Leo was screaming louder with every verse of "Hush Little Baby." My husband Dave poked his head out of the bedroom, blinked at me through his smudged glasses, and mumbled something unhelpful about whether I had tried turning on the white noise machine before retreating back into the dark to sleep. I wanted to throw my lukewarm mug of decaf coffee at his head.

But instead, my exhausted brain just sort of snapped. I dropped the Good Mom act. I stopped trying to remember the lyrics to songs written during the Revolutionary War, and I just started humming the one melody that has been permanently burned into my neural pathways since the fourth grade. Doo-doo-doo dow, dum doo-doo doo-dow...

Why 18th-century lullabies are actually terrifying

Before we talk about my descent into 90s pop music, we really need to address how deeply messed up traditional lullabies are, because I swear nobody actually listens to the lyrics until they're operating on forty-five minutes of sleep and suddenly realize they're singing a horror movie plot to a four-month-old. Take "Rock-a-bye Baby" for example.

Let's just break down the sheer, terrifying physics of this situation. Who's putting a baby in a cradle and then hauling that entire wooden structure to the literal top of a tree? And then just leaving it there for the wind to blow? Of course the bough is going to break. It's a localized weather disaster waiting to happen. You're basically singing a song to your child about them plummeting to the earth in a splintering wooden box, which is just, you know, great for reducing anxiety.

Then you've "Ring Around the Rosie," which is literally just a catchy little tune about the bubonic plague and everyone falling down dead. And don't even get me started on the absolute financial audacity of "Hush Little Baby," where this parent is promising to buy a mockingbird, a diamond ring, a looking glass, a billy goat, a cart and bull, and a dog named Rover. Who has this kind of disposable income in this economy? I'm just trying to afford diapers and maybe a latte on Fridays.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star is just functionally boring.

What my doctor genuinely said about my playlist

Anyway, the point is, I found myself bouncing in the hallway belting out Mariah Carey because her 1996 masterpiece is basically the soundtrack of my childhood, and suddenly, Leo stopped crying. Like, instantly. He just stared at me in the dark while I hit those ridiculous high notes and told him that he would, in fact, always be my baby.

I brought this up to my doctor, Dr. Miller, who always wears these aggressively bright novelty socks and usually looks like he hasn't slept since 2014. I confessed that I had abandoned classical music and was solely soothing my child with 90s R&B, and instead of judging me, he got really excited. He told me that babies honestly don't care about the lyrical content of your songs, but they care deeply about your vibe. Well, he didn't say vibe, he used some medical term like "coregulation."

Basically, he explained that my nervous system and the baby's nervous system are like a paired Bluetooth connection. When I was stressing out trying to remember the lyrics to old lullabies, my cortisol levels were spiking, which made the baby panic because he could smell my fear. But when I sang a song I honestly liked, I subconsciously relaxed. My shoulders dropped. My breathing deepened.

He also mumbled something about heart rates, noting that a tempo of around 80 beats per minute perfectly mimics a resting adult heartbeat, which is wild because guess what song happens to be exactly 80 beats per minute? YES. Mariah. He said something about the auditory cortex too, which I guess is the part of the brain that processes sound, and how hearing weird complex vocal runs—like those high-pitched doo-doo-doos—really stimulates their brain development and lays the groundwork for them to learn language later, but honestly I was running on two hours of sleep so I might be heavily paraphrasing the exact medical science here.

The teething survival era

This whole musical soothing trick became even more key a few years later when my daughter Maya was born and decided that teething was an extreme sport. If you've never experienced a teething baby, just imagine a tiny, angry vampire who drools constantly and wants to gnaw on your actual collarbone.

We were doing the 3 AM hallway pacing again, me humming Mariah and trying to survive, when Dave seriously did something useful and handed me this Handmade Wood & Silicone Teether Ring he'd bought. Usually, Dave's baby purchases are questionable (he once bought a musical toy that was so loud I "accidentally" dropped it in the sink), but this was a lifesaver. I honestly thought it was just another piece of aesthetic, trendy baby gear because it looked so pretty, but Maya was obsessed with it.

She loved the contrast between the hard, untreated beechwood ring and the squishy, colorful silicone beads. I'd just hold her, sing my weird 90s pop covers, and let her chew on it while my shoulder finally got a break. It was completely non-toxic, and I could just wipe the drool off it with a damp cloth, which is exactly the level of cleaning I'm capable of at 4 AM. Plus, it looked really cute in photos, which, let's be honest, matters a tiny bit when your entire life is covered in baby food.

If you're also dealing with a tiny vampire and want to look at Kianao's wooden teethers before you lose a limb, I highly think checking out their collection.

Not everything works, and that's fine

Of course, not every attempt to create a perfect, soothing environment goes well. We also had this Rainbow Play Gym Set that Dave proudly assembled in the living room because he read a blog post about Montessori development and gross motor skills.

Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful wooden A-frame, and it's vastly superior to the neon plastic light-up monstrosity my mother-in-law bought us that played a terrifying electronic clown laugh whenever someone walked past it. But as a magical developmental tool? It was just okay. Leo would lie under it, stare blankly at the little fabric elephant for maybe four minutes, and then immediately roll over and start screaming to be held again. It mostly just functioned as a very aesthetic hurdle for me to step over while carrying my lukewarm coffee. But hey, it didn't clash with my rugs.

Wait, are the lyrics secretly creepy?

So, back to the music. I was singing this song to Maya one afternoon while she was aggressively chewing on this cute little mint-green Squirrel Teether we had, and I seriously stopped and listened to what I was saying. "Boy, don't you know you can't escape me."

Okay, honestly, some internet pop culture critics have pointed out that if you read the lyrics without the bouncy melody, it sounds a little bit unhinged. It borders on helicopter parenting. Like, yes, I love you kids with my entire soul, but please, I desperately want you to eventually escape me, move into your own apartments, and pay your own car insurance.

But in the context of infancy? When they literally can't survive without you? It's kind of perfect. It's the ultimate promise of secure attachment. You're my baby. Please just be my baby and go to sleep so mommy can watch one episode of mindless reality television before passing out on the couch.

Why 90s pop beats traditional lullabies

If you're still skeptical about swapping Mozart for Mariah, let me just break down why this era of music is objectively superior for surviving the fourth trimester:

You really know all the words. There's zero mental effort required. You aren't fumbling in the dark trying to remember what a tuffet is or why a spider is sitting on it.
The beat is highly bouncable. That 80 bpm tempo means you can do that desperate, rhythmic parent-sway without feeling like you're doing aggressive cardio.
It reminds you that you're a person. When you're drowning in diapers and spit-up, singing a song that reminds you of middle school dances or riding in your friend's messy Honda Civic is a tiny tether to your actual identity.

If you're desperately pacing the floor tonight wondering how to get your kid to close their eyes, maybe just ditch the poetry, grab something for them to chew on, and hum whatever song makes your own shoulders drop an inch.

Ready to upgrade your nursery routine with things that honestly look good and work? Browse Kianao's organic teething and play collections so you can survive the next sleep regression in style.

Some messy, sleep-deprived questions you might have

Why do babies seem to like pop music so much?
Honestly, from my experience and what my doctor vaguely explained, they don't necessarily love the music itself, they love how the music makes YOU feel. If you're singing a song you love, you naturally relax. Your heart rate slows down, your breathing gets deeper, and your baby is basically a little stress-sponge that absorbs your relaxed energy.

Do I've to genuinely be good at singing for this to work?
Oh god, absolutely not. I sound like a dying cat when I try to hit those Mariah high notes. Your baby literally doesn't care about pitch or key. They just care about the familiar rhythm of your voice. You could be tone-deaf and your baby will still think you're basically headlining a sold-out stadium tour in their bedroom.

What if my baby just hates Mariah Carey?
First of all, rude of them. But seriously, just pick any song that has a steady, medium-slow beat. My friend Sarah swears by 90s hip-hop, and another mom I know used to hum the Jurassic Park theme song to get her twins to sleep. Just pick whatever song you know by heart that doesn't make you feel frantic.

Will singing pop songs create bad sleep associations?
Look, people on the internet will tell you that if you sneeze wrong, you're ruining your kid's sleep habits forever. I sang 90s pop to both my kids to get them through the worst of the newborn and teething phases, and now they're four and seven and sleep just fine on their own. Do whatever you need to do to survive the night right now, and worry about the "habits" later when you've had a full cup of coffee.