From the moment you’re pregnant, you’re perpetually experimenting with everything from pregnancy pillows to body lotions to find comfort as your body changes. Toward the end of her third trimester, a mom named Melissa Buckley turned to music to try to dance her baby into a better birthing position. Her song of choice? The appropriately titled "Get Low" by Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz, featuring Ying Yang Twins.
Posting under the handle melissak1996 on Instagram, the new mom asked, "Anyone else’s babies get soothed to a random song?" She explained to her 19,000 followers that she used to play the hip-hop track all the time in her third trimester "to try and get Jackson head down and engaged."
While Melissa laughed about the fact that her musical strategy did not work, it’s a different story now that Jackson is out in the world. In a video shared on April 17, Melissa starts out cradling her infant as he cries. She tells Alexa to play "Get Low." And like magic, the 8-week-old curbs his whines and looks super-curious before settling into his mama’s chest.
Melissa also shared the clip on TikTok, writing, "POV: Your baby has great music taste." She noted in the caption, "It gets him every time. He was fast asleep by the end of the song haha!"
@melissak096 It gets him everytime ?? he was fast asleep by the end of the song haha! #motherhood #csectionmom #angelbabymom #newborn #postpartumlife #rainbowbabyafterloss #postpartumjourney #postpartum #rainbowbaby #babyboy #newbornbabies #csection #rainbowbabymom #7weeksold ? original sound - Melissa | ?NavigatingMumLife?
Between the two social media platforms, the new mom’s video has garnered more than 26 million views and thousands of comments, many of which were from fellow parents discussing the songs that soothe their little ones.
- "My daughter loved Harry Styles for some reason. So much I ended last year in top 5% of Spotify listeners for him," wrote TikToker @mollybinfiel.
- "My youngest would only calm down for 'Defying Gravity' by Idina Menzel!" commented @AnotherOlderMillennial on TikTok.
- "'Old Town Road' [by Lil Nas X] works every time. Son is 10 months old. I never listened to it in my pregnancy, but he was screaming in the car at 4 months, and it came on shuffle, and it put him to sleep. We play it on loop if he gets fussy in the car which is a great trick, but I'm definitely worn out on the song," wrote @vickimeow on Instagram.
- "My oldest would drop EVERYTHING for The Office theme song. Every time!" @lauradd17 revealed on Instagram.
- "Mine was the theme song to Law & Order SVU. Got both my babies with that one," @yvonnasnooks wrote on Instagram.
Parents in What to Expect's community have also noticed their babies responding to the funniest musical choices. They shared the songs their kids love as inspiration for other overwhelmed new parents.
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- "When my baby gets fussy, I play 'The Happy Song' by Imogen Heap. I don’t know what magic is in the song, but he immediately calms down."
- "My [little one] loves 'Wheels on the Bus.' She could be screaming bloody murder, and I start singing it, she calms down instantly."
- "We have accidentally stumbled upon 'Peace Train' by Cat Stevens as the song that will calm our little guy. He's been fighting sleep bad these past couple of weeks and it helps us get him down."
- "I sing my kid a version of 'Party in the USA' [by Miley Cyrus] that I made up my own lyrics to in a delirious, sleep-deprived attempt to get him to stop crying, and apparently he really liked it. Now I have to sing it to him every time I put him down to sleep."
The science behind babies liking music, especially songs or melodies played during pregnancy, comes as no surprise as researchers have found that newborns react differently to words and sounds that were repeated daily throughout the third trimester compared to sounds they never heard during pregnancy.
So whether you’re a fan of '80s pop, country or early '00s hip-hop, you might want to be sure that the songs you're playing over and over again during the tail end of your pregnancy also happen to be tracks you won't mind relying on to soothe your little one in the newborn phase. Just make sure you're not playing music to your little one in the womb all the time, so as not to disrupt sleep cycles, and keep the volume low.
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