Tommy Richman, 3AM Teething, and the Death of My Dignity

It was 3:14 on a Tuesday morning, a time that doesn't actually exist outside of the newborn bubble or the queue for a dreadful kebab in your early twenties. I was standing in the kitchen in a pair of stained joggers, holding Twin A over my left shoulder while she screamed with the intensity of a jet engine, and stirring a syringe of Calpol with my right hand. And playing on a relentless, unkillable loop inside my sleep-deprived brain was the heavy, thumping bassline of a twenty-four-year-old American hip-hop artist. I found myself swaying under the dim extractor fan light, whispering the hook of the Tommy Richman track Million Dollar Baby to myself like a deranged, sticky mantra.

How does a viral TikTok club anthem end up dominating the psychological real estate of a thirty-something London father of twin toddlers? Blame the modern millennial urge to remain culturally relevant while completely drowning in bodily fluids. I had spent the previous afternoon attempting to make an Instagram Reel. I thought I'd use the trending audio to show a clever transition of the girls going from their pyjamas to their daytime outfits. I wanted my childless friends to see the video and think, Ah, Tom hasn't completely lost his edge, he knows what the youth are listening to.

Instead, I listened to the song roughly seventy-four times in a row, sweating profusely while trying to sync up a snap of my fingers with the beat drop. The girls absolutely refused to cooperate. Twin B managed to pull the ring light down onto the dog. Twin A grabbed the phone and smeared a half-eaten rice cake across the camera lens. I spent an hour trying to edit the footage into something coherent, completely failed, and inadvertently hardcoded the track into my frontal lobe, erasing important information like my bank PIN and my wife's birthday.

I assume actual nightclubs are just loud, sticky rooms where people pay too much for warm gin, though I wouldn't honestly know anymore.

The desperate search for meaning in the middle of the night

At some point during that 3 AM kitchen march, while waiting for the paracetamol to kick in and soothe Twin A's aggressively inflamed gums, I actually found myself standing by the kettle, searching for the lyrics to Tommy Richman's Million Dollar Baby. I was genuinely convinced, in my hazy, sleep-deprived state, that there must be some hidden, deeper meaning in the song that would unlock the secret to getting these children to sleep. Perhaps the chorus contained a coded message about sleep regressions. Perhaps the beat was scientifically engineered to mimic a mother's heartbeat.

I scrolled through the verses on my phone, squinting against the harsh blue light while a small, warm puddle of drool soaked through the shoulder of my t-shirt. The lyrics, as it turns out, don't offer any big advice on toddler sleep cycles. They're mostly about being successful, avoiding fake people, and feeling yourself. Which, to be fair, is a level of self-assurance I haven't felt since 2018. If you actually sit down and listen to Tommy Richman singing Million Dollar Baby, the vibe is entirely 'I'm young, wealthy, and currently in a VIP section.' It's a stark, almost violently funny contrast to my current aesthetic, which is 'I'm old, broke, and currently trying to scrape dried porridge off the radiator.'

But the phrase "million dollar baby" really started to hit home around 4 AM. Because when you factor in the sheer volume of organic cotton, specialized teething implements, nursery furniture, and endless supplies of nappies, these two tiny dictators are quite literally draining my bank account with the efficiency of a corporate hedge fund. They're my million dollar babies, and I'm their very tired, unpaid intern.

What the doctor vaguely mumbled about music

I really brought up the whole music thing at our last weigh-in clinic. My GP, a woman who always looks perpetually tired of my neurotic questions, was checking the girls' ears while I babbled about using hip-hop to distract them from teething pain. I was hoping for some validation, maybe a medical endorsement of my cutting-edge parenting techniques.

She just sighed, removed her stethoscope, and muttered something about auditory distraction processing. From what I could gather through her medical jargon and obvious desire for me to leave her office, introducing complex, rhythmic background noise can sometimes temporarily short-circuit a toddler's pain response. It distracts their highly unformed brains from the fact that small, sharp bones are violently pushing their way through their gums. But she followed it up by noting that practically any noise works, and I probably shouldn't be blasting club anthems next to their developing eardrums unless I want to pay for hearing aids later in life. So much for my genius.

Check out our collection of baby accessories that don't require batteries or basslines.

Attempting to dress the part while bleeding money

The hilarious thing about my failed TikTok attempt was the outfits I was trying to transition them into. I had this grand vision of them looking like trendy, minimalist eco-babies bobbing to the track. I had dressed Twin A in the Organic Cotton Baby Bodysuit, which I genuinely adore. It's ridiculously soft, and the envelope shoulders mean that when the inevitable nuclear-level nappy blowout happens, you can pull the whole thing down over their body rather than dragging toxic waste over their face.

It's made of that glorious undyed organic cotton that feels like a cloud, and for exactly four minutes, she looked like a serene, expensive infant who might really feature in an upscale magazine. Then she aggressively spat up half a bottle of formula right on the beat drop. The bodysuit went straight into the wash, completely ruining the aesthetic. Still, it washes brilliantly and doesn't lose its shape, which is more than I can say for my own t-shirts these days.

For Twin B, I had wrestled her into the Flutter Sleeve Bodysuit. The little ruffled sleeves are objectively adorable, and they give her this tiny, elegant silhouette that makes her look deeply unimpressed with my parenting skills. She sat on the rug, wearing her lovely flutter sleeves, aggressively chewing on her own foot while Tommy Richman blared from my phone. It was a beautiful juxtaposition of high-quality sustainable fashion and sheer, chaotic toddler grime.

Rubber boba and wooden arches of mild interest

Since the music was only a temporary fix for the teething situation, I’ve had to rely on actual, physical objects to stop them from gnawing on the furniture. Let me tell you a story about a lifesaver. While I was pretending to be a hip young dad on the internet, my actual saving grace has been the Panda Silicone Baby Teether.

We’ve tried every chilled ring and weird textured nub on the market, but the girls are brutally particular. Twin A was literally trying to bite chunks out of the wooden skirting boards before I handed her this panda. It's flat enough that her clumsy little hands can honestly grip it, and the textured bits seem to hit the exact spot where her molars are currently waging war. I keep three of them in a rotation: one in her mouth, one in the fridge getting cold, and one lost somewhere under the sofa. It's honestly brilliant, and unlike the music, it doesn't give me a headache.

On the other hand, we also have the Rainbow Wooden Play Gym set up in the corner of the living room. It's fine. It looks stunning, very Scandi-chic, very 'I'm a calm, centered parent who only buys wooden items.' But my twins mostly just lie underneath it, staring up at the hanging elephant with an expression of mild, quiet judgment. Occasionally Twin B will lazily bat at a wooden ring, but they definitely don't engage with it the way they engage with, say, a discarded cardboard box or the dog's water bowl. It's a lovely piece of room decor, but don't expect it to buy you more than four minutes of peace.

So here we're. It's now 5:30 AM. The Calpol has worked its muted magic. The twins are finally asleep again, their chests rising and falling in that beautiful, rhythmic way that instantly makes you forget the psychological torture of the last two hours. The house is quiet. The streets of London are still dark. And yet, as I tiptoe back to my cold bed, stepping over a discarded panda teether, the bassline starts up in my head all over again.

If you're also desperately trying to keep your dignity intact while surviving the toddler years, explore our full range of organic, sustainable gear to help you through the chaos.

My deeply unscientific FAQ

Why do I've a viral club song stuck in my head at 4 AM?
Because your brain is currently running on three hours of broken sleep and the fumes of yesterday's instant coffee. When you're sleep-deprived, your brain latches onto repetitive, rhythmic patterns. You tried to be a cool parent on social media, and now you're paying the ultimate psychological price. Accept your fate.

Can I use loud music to distract a teething baby?
My doctor basically said that any sudden, novel sensory input can temporarily distract a baby from gum pain. But she also looked at me like I was an idiot for playing heavy bass near a two-year-old. Stick to chilled silicone toys. They work better and don't wake up the neighbors.

Are those organic cotton bodysuits honestly worth the money?
Honestly, yes. I used to buy the cheap multipacks from the supermarket, and they turned into weird, scratchy trapezoids after three washes. The envelope shoulders on the Kianao ones have saved me from getting pureed squash in my daughters' hair more times than I can count. Plus, they survive the washing machine when your child inevitably ruins them during a TikTok transition.

How do I get my toddler to seriously use the aesthetically pleasing wooden toys?
You don't. You place the gorgeous wooden gym in the corner of the room so your in-laws think you've your life together, and then you accept that your child will spend 45 minutes playing with a plastic Tupperware lid instead. It's the universal law of parenting.

Will I ever feel culturally relevant again?
Probably not. By the time you finally figure out the lyrics to the current trending audio, teenagers have moved on to something completely different. Stop trying to make the snap transition work, put the ring light in the cupboard, and just go to sleep.