Surviving the Baby Saja Netflix Obsession

Dear Tom of exactly six months ago,

You're currently sitting on the battered grey sofa in our Islington flat, smugly sipping a lukewarm cup of PG Tips. The twins are peacefully napping, and you're thinking to yourself that you've finally got this whole parenting gig sorted. You reckon you've successfully bypassed the obnoxious cartoon phase because you only play them vintage acoustic Beatles covers. You naive, beautiful fool. Put the mug down, because Netflix is about to release a film called K-Pop Demon Hunters, and your entire existence is about to be hijacked by a demonic boy band.

I'm writing this to you from the future to warn you about the sheer volume of noise, sweat, and mild existential dread that's about to flood our living room. You think you know what a catchy song is. You don't. You haven't yet experienced a song so chemically engineered to stick in a two-year-old's brain that they'll chant the chorus through a mouthful of mashed banana at six in the morning.

The plot makes absolutely no sense and I hate how much I love it

Let me break down the absurdity that you're about to watch on repeat for the next half-year. The film is about a fictional girl group called Huntr/x who moonlight as demon slayers. Their main rivals are a boy band called the Saja Boys, who are actually actual demons from the underworld sent to steal the souls of their teenage fans through synchronised dance routines. It's utterly ridiculous, the pacing is frantic, and page 47 of the parenting manual suggests you remain calm during highly stimulating media, which I found deeply unhelpful at 3am when I caught myself humming the villain's solo.

The character the girls will latch onto is called Baby Saja. Now, you hear "baby" and you think, lovely, a cute little infant character who teaches them shapes. No. He is just the youngest member of the demonic boy band—the maknae, as I've been forced to learn. He has spiky blue hair, wears a leather jacket with unnecessary zips, and shoots purple lasers out of his microphone.

He's also responsible for the fact that Twin A now aggressively points at the family dog and shouts "Soul stealer!" whenever the poor beast tries to eat a dropped rice cake.

I don't have the energy to explain why the demon hunters use magical lip gloss instead of actual weapons, so just accept it and move on.

Who's actually responsible for these tunes

Here's where you're really going to lose your mind. You'll assume the songs are just cheap, tinny keyboard tracks knocked together in a basement. But one evening, after hearing the song "Underworld Groove" for the forty-ninth time, you'll find yourself frantically Googling the kpop demon hunters baby saja voice actor while hiding in the bathroom.

Turns out, the guy who voices and sings for baby saja is Danny Chung. He's a real-life, highly credentialed industry heavyweight who writes actual chart-topping hits for massive groups like BLACKPINK. It's incredibly unfair. You stand absolutely no chance of resisting the beat. They brought in a professional sniper to shoot an earworm directly into your brain, and you just have to sit there and take it while the twins bounce off the skirting boards.

What Dr. Sarah mumbled about our screen time

Eventually, the guilt will set in. You'll read an article from some very serious authority figure about how screens are ruining the youth, and you'll panic. When we had our check-up at the NHS clinic, I vaguely confessed our Netflix sins to Dr. Sarah, sort of hoping she'd give me a medical exemption from guilt because I've twins.

She gave me that specifically British medical smile—the one that conveys both sympathy and mild judgment—and mentioned that the official line is to keep screens away from toddlers entirely, but since we live in the real world, maybe just try to make it an active experience rather than a zombie state. Apparently, letting them stare blankly at flashing lights for an hour while you try to scrape dried Weetabix off the floor isn't great for their neural pathways.

So rather than throwing the iPad out the window and locking the telly in a cupboard while everyone cries, I just started turning off the screen and blasting the soundtrack through the Bluetooth speaker so they can run around the coffee table until their legs give out.

The uniform of a tiny demon hunter

Because they're basically doing a full aerobic workout every time Danny Chung hits a high note, you'll quickly realise that thick jumpers are a terrible idea indoors. They sweat like tiny, furious bricklayers.

I've mostly been keeping them in the Sleeveless Organic Cotton Bodysuit from Kianao. It's fine, it does the job nicely without being overly fussy. It's got just enough elastane that when Twin B attempts a dramatic drop-squat during the chorus, the seams don't instantly burst. Plus, it's organic cotton, which means when they inevitably rub their drool-covered faces all over their own shoulders, they aren't ingesting whatever weird chemicals go into standard high-street dyes.

If you're currently trying to survive your own toddler's obsession with animated dance battles, you can browse Kianao's organic baby clothes collection to find something breathable.

The cape that saved my sanity

While Twin B is mostly in it for the dancing, Twin A has taken the "hunter" aspect of the movie very seriously. She requires a costume. Specifically, she requires a cape to dramatically swish when she defeats the imaginary demons hiding behind the radiator.

My absolute saving grace for this has been the Organic Cotton Baby Blanket with the Playful Penguin Adventure Design. I originally bought it because I thought the penguins were quite sweet and it seemed like a nice, sensible, GOTS-certified thing to drape over a pram. It has since been repurposed as the official uniform of justice.

I've to knot it loosely around her shoulders at least four times a day. She drags it across the kitchen tiles, steps on it, wraps the dog in it, and uses it to wipe her nose when she thinks I'm not looking. The fact that it hasn't completely disintegrated after being washed on an almost daily basis is genuinely astonishing. It actually seems to get a bit softer the more I wash it, which is the exact opposite of how I feel after six months of parenting.

Teething in the middle of a dance routine

The universe has a spectacular sense of timing, Tom. Right at the peak of this movie obsession, Twin B will decide to cut her molars. There's nothing quite as harrowing as watching a toddler try to do a joyful pop routine while simultaneously crying from gum pain and leaking thick, viscous saliva down her chin.

Calpol only does so much, and you can't exactly reason with a two-year-old whose mouth feels like it's on fire. I started handing her the Panda Teether Silicone Baby Chew Toy right before I hit play on the soundtrack.

It's brilliant because it's shaped in a way that she can genuinely hold onto it while she stomps around, and the texture seems to be exactly what she wants to aggressively gnaw on. Sometimes I chuck it in the fridge for ten minutes beforehand. It doesn't magically stop the teething tantrums, obviously, but it definitely reduces the volume of the screaming, which means I can seriously hear the television.

She also occasionally tries to use the Gentle Baby Building Block Set to build a little stage for her toys. It's a decent enough set, mostly because the rubber is soft, so when her architectural vision inevitably collapses and she hurls a purple square across the room in frustration, it doesn't dent the plasterwork.

A final word of advice

You're going to survive this, Tom. The phase will eventually pass, or at least morph into an obsession with something equally loud and confusing. You'll learn the lyrics to songs you never wanted to know, you'll accept that your living room is now a permanent rehearsal space, and you'll figure out how to maintain a tiny shred of your dignity while doing the "Soul Stealer" dance to get a smile out of a grumpy toddler.

Before we get to the questions I know you're frantically trying to ask me across the space-time continuum, go grab another cup of tea and perhaps look at some breathable essentials at Kianao to prepare for the sweaty months ahead. You're going to need all the help you can get.

The messy questions you're definitely asking right now

Is this movie really scary for a two-year-old?
Honestly, it depends on the kid. Twin A thinks the demons are hilarious because they fall over a lot. Twin B hid behind the sofa the first time the sky turned red on screen. I’d say pre-screen it yourself, but let's be real, you're going to be in the room with them anyway making sure they don't eat the television remote. If it gets too intense, just skip to the musical numbers.

How do I get the songs out of my head?
You don't. Accept your new reality. Danny Chung's melodies are a permanent fixture in your subconscious now. Sometimes I try listening to old Radiohead albums to cleanse my palate, but then I just end up singing the K-pop lyrics over the depressing guitar riffs, which is somehow worse.

Are they getting enough exercise if they just want to watch TV?
If they're just sitting there glazed over, no. That's why I started the audio-only dance parties. Once you take away the moving pictures, they genuinely have to use their bodies to express the energy the music gives them. Ten minutes of that and they're usually panting on the rug demanding a snack.

Can I wash that penguin blanket at 60 degrees?
The label says 40 degrees, mate. I wouldn't push it. I accidentally washed one of their organic cotton tops on a hot cycle once and it came out looking like it was tailored for a squirrel. Stick to 40, skip the fabric softener, and just let it air dry over a chair. It dries surprisingly fast.

Will they ever stop comparing everything to demons?
Probably not anytime soon. Yesterday I handed Twin A a perfectly acceptable bowl of porridge and she looked me dead in the eye and called it "underworld sludge". Just nod, hand them a spoon, and drink your tea.