“Pick a song that you can stand to sing over and over, maybe for years,” is recommendation that Elizabeth Wolf of Merrimac, Mass., offers new dad and mom. “Doesn’t matter how well you sing it. Over time that will be the most soothing sound your child knows.”

That sentiment was mirrored within the many, many beautiful tales you so generously shared with us in response to our story on lullabies. We invited readers to ship their recollections — and, when doable, recordings — of lullabies that labored wonders at naptime or bedtime. Thank you to the practically 200 crooners who responded. We learn (and listened to) every story and music. You made us smile, chuckle, tear up … and even get a little bit sleepy. Here’s a choice of the lullabies which have struck a chord with the NPR viewers.

The songs you shared come from all all over the world, with lyrics that contact on the divine — and, to our shock, nasty tigers.

Vandna Milligan of Seattle, Wash., would sing “Achyutam Keshavam.” It’s an unlikely title for a bedtime music — the interpretation is “infallible one and killer of demons.” But that is not what the music is about. It’s an ode to the child Krishna. “In Hinduism, [the God] Krishna is the embodiment of childlike joy that is the prize of life,” Milligan says. The music asks the query: “Who says that God does not sleep?” and has a line about rocking the child Krishna to sleep.

That resonated with Milligan. “I fretted about my baby’s eating and sleeping.” The music “tells me that I just have to sing to my baby the way Krishna’s mom sang to him, and he will sleep,” she writes. “I hope you enjoy it, it brings happy tears to me.”

Tina Ling of Woodland Hills, Calif., gave a brand new (and kinder) twist to a Chinese lullaby her mom sang to her. “The original version is called ‘Aunt Tiger,’ or ‘Hu Gu Po,’ ” she writes. The lyrics inform “a bit of a cautionary tale, warning the children that if they don’t go to sleep or stop crying, the tiger will eat their little fingers or their little ears. Even though I did not take it literally, I remember being extra motivated to keep my eyes shut just in case. When I became a mom, I found myself humming the melody to my baby but could not bring myself to sing the somewhat troublesome lyrics. Therefore, I changed the title character to firefly, or Ying Huo Chong. Instead of threatening to eat her, these fireflies promise to light up and stay beside her in the darkness. I feel that it sends a much more comforting message yet still carries the same sentimental value and nostalgia as I now pass it down to the next generation. Maybe one day my kid will choose to craft her own version too, but we will still share the same melody and love for our family.”

Like Ling, a lot of you wrote that lullabies hyperlink us throughout generations. Becca Poccia Hays of Rochester, N.Y., remembers her mom singing many songs to her however “the one which has change into most particular to me is ‘Duerme, mi tripón.’ ” It’s a Venezuelan folks music that interprets to “sleep, my child.” When Hays studied Spanish in faculty, she says the reminiscence of the music resurfaced and introduced her nearer to her mother. “Suddenly the syllables of this song I hadn’t thought about for years came back to me and started arranging themselves in words and then sentences.” Now she sings it to her 15-month-old son. “I like to imagine him learning Spanish when he’s older ,” she says, and being embraced by a reminiscence of the music.

Jennifer Hsu Larratt-Smith of Riverside, Calif., additionally feels a generational connection from a household lullaby. “I am second-generation Chinese American, and my dad would sing this lullaby to me every night,” she says. “I grew up not knowing Chinese, and it wasn’t until I was an adult that I understood the words. But its lilting phrases have always brought me a sense of peace. I sang this lullaby nightly to my children when they were younger. The song was a musical bridge to my father’s world and to mine,” she writes. Below is a tough translation to English.

The music “Eli Eli” allows Beverly Tsacoyianis, who lives in Memphis, Tenn., to sing to her youngsters a music steeped in historical past. The music, whose title means “My God, My God,” relies on the a poem by the Hungarian Jewish pilot Hannah Szenes, who died in a effort to rescue Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust. The verse speaks of the fantastic thing about nature: “I pray that it never will end. The sand and the sea…” Tsacoyianis writes that she is going to some day inform her youngsters the story of Hannah Szenes however for now simply enjoys the melody and lyrics as she sings. “I have sung it over the years to my twin boys who are now 7 years old. They both have ADHD and autism diagnoses. For ADHD they are ‘predominantly inattentive’ and for ASD one was diagnosed mild and the other moderate,” she writes, “but when they ask for this lullaby, or when I ask if they’d like to hear it, their little faces and bodies relax almost instantly as I begin.”

A music sung by a touring harp participant captivated Benjamin Fairfield of Honolulu when he and his spouse had been serving within the Peace Corps within the mid-2000s close to the Thailand/Myanmar border. “It was performed as a participatory show closer by the regionally-famous Tue Pho from Omkoi, Thailand. He roamed the mountains of Chiang Mai and Tak provinces on his motorcycle with his tehnaku [6-stringed harp], playing shows in remote Karen villages to audiences who had no electricity but listened regularly to his songs via battery-powered transistor radios,” Fairfield writes. “The lyrics speak of a man missing his departed wife, his tears falling on the red blanket she wove for him as a gift at their marriage.” His sons are ages 6 and three. “When I sing the song to our boys at night, it conjures up vivid memories of cold teak forests, smoky hearths with sooty tea kettles and the full moon reflected in the highland rice paddies.”

A narrative of a calf being led to slaughter contrasted with the liberty of birds in flight — that is the mournful Yiddish folks music “Dona, Dona” that Elizabeth Wolf sang in English to her daughter “for bedtime, sickness, big sadness or upset,” she says. “I don’t know where I learned it, probably from Joan Baez. It’s perfect in so many ways. The song has three verses and three parts, so one time through is the magic number nine. I sang it in the rocking chair, in her bed and mine, throughout infancy and toddler years, for weeks after our house burned down, for months through a messy divorce. My daughter is now 24 and my voice is older and shakier. But this song is part of our history.”

A mom hen teaches her chicks in regards to the world in “La Cocorica,” the music that Lily Ibarra of San Antonio, Texas, sings to her youngsters. It’s a tune popularized by the Mexican youngsters’s singer Francisco Gabilondo Soler, recognized popularly as Cri-Cri, a cricket character he first created within the Nineteen Thirties for a radio broadcast. Ibarra says her mother used to sing it to her and her brother, and now she sings it to her youngsters. She writes: “In all honesty, when I start singing it, I get sleepy and start falling asleep before they do lol.”

Then there are the up to date songs which can be reworked into lullabies. DaKishia Reid of Winston-Salem, N.C., affords that her household’s favourite bedtime music is Jason Mraz’s “I Won’t Give Up.” “Our kiddo was born with surprisingly intense medical complexity, and it was off to the races from there,” she writes. “There have been many times in the last five years where we have laid down to rest in the hospital. And wherever we go, our nighttime ritual comes right along. My child starts kindergarten in the fall. I am amazed at her ability to roll with the punches, her even-headedness, her abundant joy. I mean, we do OK as parents, sure. But Imma add that a good sleep schedule, and a lullaby whispered to me by the Divine, probably helps out a lot.”

Stacie Eirich of Louisiana is at the moment in Memphis whereas her daughter undergoes most cancers therapies at St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. “We sing often, and believe music and the arts are essential to life,” she writes. “Medhel An Gwyns,” which interprets from Cornish to “Soft is the Wind,” was written for the TV sequence Poldark. The music is a favourite of her son’s. “The song speaks of Cornwall’s beauty as well as its people, their daily lives determined by mining and the tide, with family, love and survival at its center.”

Boy bands additionally obtained a lullaby shout-out. Sharon Friedenbach Morris of Chicago, Ill., says: “I’m a mother and a pediatric nurse, and over the last 9+ years of my personal and professional life, I have found one fail-safe lullaby for babies under 1 year old. Every time I use it, the screaming baby in question is quiet by the bridge. I use it sparingly: I respect and honor the song’s dark magic. It’s ‘I Want It That Way‘ by the Backstreet Boys.”

Indeed, there was plenty of pop music within the lullaby library, together with “Blackbird” by The Beatles, Tom Waits’ “Midnight Lullaby” and Billy Joel’s “Lullabye.”

Childhood experiences led some dad and mom to their lullaby alternative. Katie Beck of Tacoma, Wash. says when she got here residence from the hospital together with her new child daughter she could not consider a single music to calm her down. “So I pulled out my camp song book and started singing,” she says. Her go-to from Camp St. Albans in western Washington was, “Moon on the Meadow,” a music about friendships made at camp — and he or she stories it has her 3-month-old daughter asleep in a couple of minutes.

And then there are the classics. A whole lot of you advised us that you just go for “You Are My Sunshine,” “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” — and, no shock, the immediately recognizable Brahms lullaby by German composer Johannes Brahms. The music, referred to as “Wiegenlied” in German, begins “Lullaby, and goodnight …” and its acquainted melody is taken into account by many to be the quintessential lullaby. Sarah Roberts of Belle Mead, N.J., says, “my mother, a classical pianist, would go downstairs and play it on the piano for my sister and me after tucking us in.” Roberts says she later sang it to her personal youngsters.

Lorraine LoRusso of Nashua, N.H., says her mom sang the Brahms lullaby to her. “Fast forward to 5 years ago, my daughter-in-law could not get my grandson to sleep at all so I asked if I could try,” she says. After utilizing the “combination of words and humming” that her mother used, “within 2 minutes my grandson was sleeping.” Lots of readers advised us they hummed among the melody as a result of they did not know the phrases.

“Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral (That’s an Irish Lullaby),” is one other favourite steered in practically a dozen responses. Bing Crosby’s recording within the Nineteen Forties could also be a think about its recognition. This website has a number of variations of the music, which was written by Irish-American composer James Royce Shannon in 1913. Megan Hartnett of Alexandria, Va. writes that her grandmother Mary Jo Hartnett would sing it to her, and he or she swore it was magic. “I could feel myself getting sleepy,” she says. “Years later I sing that song to my 1-year-old son almost every night. My grandma passed away just a couple weeks after I told her I was pregnant, but whenever I sing that song I think of her.” When Hartnett sings the music, she says, “I take that time too to think about what I’m grateful for and the people and love that I’ve been surrounded by.”

The religious “Amazing Grace” was the music Grace Hutto of Washington, D.C.’s mom sang to her. Her mom was a talented improviser. When her sister was born, mother modified the lyrics to “Amazing Sarah,” and at sleepovers, “my mother sang ‘Amazing Gabby,’ ‘Amazing Kelly Anne,’ ‘Amazing Sophie,’ ‘Amazing Evie’ and so on.”

Martha Shaver of Northpoint, Mich., and Meredith Neill of Burbank, Calif., each provide the lighthearted “Skidamarink,” (which truly has a wide range of spellings resulting from it … not being an actual phrase): “Skidamarink a dink a dink, skidamarink a doo… I love you in the morning and in the afternoon…” It’s a music from a 1910 musical that has gone on to change into a youngsters’s basic.

Other conventional lullabies you advised us you sing: “All the Pretty Little Horses” from Jo Shafer of Yakima, Wash., Sara Stroud of Little Rock, Ark., and Joshua Watts of Richmond, Va.; “Goodnight, Sweetheart” got here from Kat Barnett of Guam.

Musicals offered plenty of lullaby materials, together with: “Goodnight My Someone” from Meredith Willson’s The Music Man, “Summertime” from George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess and “Happiness” from You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown and “Stay Awake” from Mary Poppins — sung by Heidi Pennington of Harrisonburg, Va., Emily Paul of Staunton, Ill., and Natasha Ramirez of San Antonio, Texas..

Lynne Mullins of Livermore, Calif., and Heidi Pennington have “Silent Night” on heavy rotation.

Heidi Pennington additionally sings “Edelweiss,” as does Liezl Alcantara Houglum of Maui, Hawaii (who, certainly, says her father named her after the character in The Sound of Music, from which the music originates). “Instead of ‘bless my homeland forever,’ he would tenderly sing, ‘bless my children forever,’ ” writes Houglum. “Such a sweet sentiment that touches my heart to this day. Now, my two young kiddos request ‘Edelweiss’ at bedtime and sing along with my husband and me.” Sometimes, as within the clip beneath, her husband accompanies with the ukulele.

There was plenty of pop music within the lullaby library, too, like “Blackbird” by The Beatles, Tom Waits’ “Midnight Lullaby” and Billy Joel’s “Lullabye.”

The soothing vacation basic “Silent Night” is a part of the bedtime rotation for Lynne Mullins of Livermore, Calif.

And after all, folks sing songs that will by no means in 1,000,000 years appear lullaby-ish. Chu Man Kow of Yorba Linda, Calif. turns to “The Star Spangled Banner.” Ben Trumbo of Harrison, Va., goes for “Take Me out to the Ballgame” and Victoria Vlach of Austin, Texas says her grandmother, who had roots in Bohemia (in what’s now the Czech Republic), sang her “God Bless America.”

Vlach additionally submits a musical thriller. “One of my earliest memories is of my grandmother holding me in her arms and rocking me as she sang,” Vlach writes. She despatched us her favourite (within the sound clip beneath). “I don’t know what it’s actually called, but I call it ‘Uustoo donkey,’ and there’s one section I can never remember — but I always felt loved and cared for when she sang this song to me. I remember asking what the song was about, but I don’t remember anymore what she said — maybe something about a donkey and/or fish in a pond?” Anybody within the NPR viewers have a clue as to this music’s identification? If you do, write us at goatsandsoda@npr.org with “donkey” within the topic line.

Parents additionally identified that children will be robust lullaby critics. Ah, the unhappy sting of lullaby rejection!

Joanne Hyso of Berkley, Mich. writes: “When I was pregnant with my third child, I decided that if I sang the same song daily during my pregnancy the baby would always find comfort in the lullaby because it was familiar. I liked the song, ‘I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marbled Halls‘ as sung by Enya, and it seemed lullaby-ish to me, so I sang it all the time to my growing tummy. I thought I was brilliant. As a baby, my daughter, Rachel, cried every time I sang that song. Once she had words, she would scream at me, Stop singing!’ She is 30 years old now and still hates that song.”

Sometimes it is not the music that units off sparks a lot because the singer. Judy Stubchaer of Santa Barbara, Calif., says, “I don’t have a good ear; I sing off key without being aware of it. When I started a lullaby, our boys would groan and shout, ‘Don’t sing, Mom! We’ll go to sleep! We promise! But DON’T SING!’ “

As we wind down our lullaby assortment, we’ll attain for a philosophical observe. “My mom sang Joni Mitchell’s ‘Circle Game‘ to my sister and me as a lullaby,” writes Lauren Slubowski Keenan-Devlin of Evanston, Ill. “She only ever sang us the refrain, but when I had my own daughters I taught myself the lyrics for all four verses and changed the main character from a boy to a girl. They say the days are long but the years are short; Joni Mitchell’s lyrics reminded me to cherish the short years at the end of those long days.”