My wife and I would always sing "Fish Heads" by Barnes & Barnes. You know-"Fish Head, Fish Heads, rolly polly fish heads...."

My daughter likes to hear "Space is the Place" by avant garde jazz icon Sun Ra. It is a lovely optimistic thing, with lyrics like "there's no limit to the things that you can do."

Cockles and Mussles and Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-rah, but lately, There Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens. Who knew my kids are Louis Jordan fans?

I take the opposite approach. I threaten to sing if my kids won't go to bed. :-)

But seriously, when my eldest was an infant my wife used to sing lullabies in Vietnamese.

What interesting is that my eldest now sings to our youngest to get him to sleep. He sings Alicia Keys' No One. Only he doesn't know the words so he makes them up.

I find it awe inspiring.

We sing 'If You Close the Door' by the Velvet Underground to our daughter every night. So far she pretty much listens to what we listen to but now that she’s starting understand things more we’re saving the Eazy E until after her bed time.

I agree with Suzy, "You are My Sunshine" is the best. Also "Tennessee Waltz"--the tempo and rhythm are perfect.

my mormon daughter-in-law sings this song. It was a favorite in their sunday shool.

I sang the songs handed down from generations of Irish immigrants. My sons are now grown and I sing the songs to my grandchildren. Only one of my sons took the trouble to learn all of the songs and he sings them to his children too. These songs are not written down anywhere.

"Rocky Mountain High" by John Denver and "Stay awake, don't go to sleep" from Mary Poppins.

A song that my Irish mum sang to us as kids and now I sing it to my son (maybe it's an Irish song, I've never heard it in the States??) It goes "Horsey, horsey, don't you stop, just let your feet go clippity-clop. The tail goes swish and the wheels go round. Giddyap, we're homeward bound." Sometimes my son will spontaneously start murmuring "horsey horsey horsey", he just turned 2 and this is the first song he's trying to sing!

I must be Megan's mom. Except that I'm not. I sang "Summertime" and "Hush Little Baby" (making up rhymes for what seemed like hours--"if that little toy truck don't start, momma's gonna buy you a shopping cart") but my big three were "Baby Beluga" (Raffi) "Morningtown Ride" (Malvina Reynolds, sung by The Seekers), and a tune that I made up to go along with the verse that the Little Fur Child's mother and father sing to him at the end of that book: "Sleep, sleep, my little fur child, out of the windiness, out of the wild..." I sang it in the car this morning on the way to school, and my sixteen-year-old son (no he does not own a car) sang along. Now I can die happy (in about 50 years, thank you).

My mom always sang "Summertime" from the musical "Porgy & Bess" to me as a baby.

Summertime, and the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high
Your daddy's rich
And your momma's good lookin'
So hush little baby, don't you cry

(sometimes she's switch up the gender roles and make it "your momma's rich, and your daddy's good lookin'")

She'd also sing that "Mockingbird" lullabye:

Hush little baby
Don't say a word
Daddy's gonna buy you a mockingbird
And when that mockingbird don't sing
Daddy's gonna buy you a diamond ring
etc.

If the lullaby discussion group is bothered that "I Kissed a Girl" actually says something positive about same-sex relationships, they can relax. Their children will be exposed to thousands of hateful things said about lesbians and gay men every year they are growing up.

I heard the on-air comment that people sing "A Bushel and a Peck" because it's on some Dan Zanes CD. Now, I'm not a parent, but I am a great babysitter, and while I have NEVER heard a Dan Zanes CD, I sing kids to sleep with that song all the time. "A Bushel and a Peck" is one of my favorites for two reasons: My mom used it to sing me to sleep, and it WORKS. I sing it with two other songs my mom sang to me and they form a popular and effective combo.

What songs are most effective depends on how you're putting a kid to sleep. If the child is young enough that there's some rocking/walking/comforting component, anything sung in a chest-vibrating, mid-voice range is sufficient. I prefer that it's also melodic, but that's just me.

If a kid is older, the chances are much much higher that they'll understand words, so I would say anything melodic and repetitive that they'll enjoy is good. Avoid anything too silly--it will keep them up--but this is where pop songs are better.

House at Pooh Corner (ala Loggins & Messina) serves as a quick bedtime story as well.

Kiss Of Life by Sade. My son is 10. Whenever I hear that song it takes me those 10 yrs, right back to the middle of my livingroom, dancing with my baby boy.

You Are My Sunshine. It never fails.

Bobby McPheron's Don't Worry, Be Happy

It really worked!!

1. Up On the Roof, 2. Four Strong Winds/ Ian and Sylvia/ Neil Young

Cast Your Fate Into the Wind by Vince Guaraldi sent my daughter to slumberland without a hitch.

Fix You by Cold Play and
The Lucky One by Allison Krauss

Songs from "Oklahoma"
Also "Ring around the Rosy" is a nurser ryme. not a lulaby. great day

I'd just like to point out as a teenager listening to this show who doesn't particularly like pop music that "I Kissed a Girl" isn't about a homosexual relationship per se; it's really a girl talking about her bisexual experimentation. You have to remember that the rest of the songs on that album are about how all her boyfriends have been total jerks. Just a correction.

My kids have enjoyed the modern folk music of the Canadian group "Great Big Sea".

My 2 year old niece like show tunes like "Tomorrow" from Annie and "On My Own" from Les Miserables. She sings along, and one day said to her mother, "Mommy, a river is just a river" (line from On My Own).. Very cute and more modern than the old lullabyes.