Rockabye Baby!

When I was listening to Jumping Monkeys Podcast #3 awhile back, they discussed the use of an iHome for playing music for their children. It wasn’t that thought which caught my attention, but rather the choice of music. In this case it was a lullaby rendition of Metallica.

What a great idea! I was getting really bored with listening to the same old Pooh lullaby which emanated from Alia and Connor’s night light.

I’m not using an iHome, but rather just my iPod connected to a set of external speakers.

My current playlist includes the following (in addition to Metallica): Coldplay, Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, No Doubt, Pink Floyd, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Eagles, The Smashing Pumpkins, and U2.

When we put the kids down to sleep, we turn on the iPod’s sleep timer for 30 minutes. It’s configured to randomize the playlist, so each time it’s a different set of tunes (from the almost 150 in the playlist).

Now when we’re listening to the baby monitor downstairs, we actually don’t mind hearing it in the background. I’ve even been known to hum along to a few of the tunes. I absolutely love it – and so do the kids. How do I know? Because I ask them before they go to sleep if they want music, and they tell me yes. Granted, they might not differentiate what *kind* of music, but I’ll take it as a good sign anyway. They certainly sleep to it! We’ve been using this setup for almost a month now.

At first, I wasn’t going to get every album available, but the more I listen to the list, the more I’m also considering adding these other lullabye renditions to it: Bjork, Bob Marley, Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age, The Cure, The Ramones and Tool. I’m not going to link each of those albums for simplicity sake, but if you want to hear samples, you can go here.

The current problem with this setup is that somehow the speakers we are using are getting interference from someone broadcasting very early in the morning. It’s almost as someone is broadcasting too powerfully on their CB, or we’re picking up an emergency police broadcast or something. All of a sudden we’ll be sleeping and we’ll hear these voices really loud (with some technical jargon in the discussion) and it’ll wake us up. I need to run into the nursery and quickly turn off the speakers. Some mornings I haven’t been quick enough. It’s happened about a half-dozen times now. I’ll switch speakers and hopefully get a set that is less susceptible to picking up random RF.