Playlists

SKZW

Share what's on your playlist for the Big Day!

What songs are currently in your heavy rotation? Which new songs do you currently love but don't have a copy of yet? What's your ultimate must-have music? Tell me your fav genre!

For been-there done-that ladies, what songs were the best to have while laboring? (If you remember!) What mood of music helped you the best: mellow and soothing or some blast-from-the-past you could belt out, aka: Mozart or Madonna?

SKZW

(I'm assuming most people have a smart phone with a music player, or some other portable music device that's not a 3-foot-long boombox, but certainly feel free to tell me if I'm wrong!)

bacorrea

I didn't do this. So in college I had this song as my alarm ring tone and I just can't listen to it anymore. I didn't want some experience like that happening. For instance there is this song that was big on the radio when I was a kid and when I hear it I am instantly taken back to my dad driving me to school and feeling carsick (I have terrible motion sickness). I don't want to be playing the radio 2 years from now and hear a song that was playing while I was pushing and be taken back to that moment. I try to block the birth out - I mean yay baby! But everything up to that moment was terrible.
Sooo FFSC? I think birthing playlist are weird. 

saric83

We're huge nerds, but we listened to the Jim Dale version of Harry Potter audio book throughout a lot of labor, and then the rest of our playlist was our wedding list, which was lots of soul (Ben E. King, Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, Stevie Wonder, etc.)  It was very calming to me because I already associate all of that music with fun and happy times for us.  

jayandaplus

Love this thread @SKZW! I started a "baby" playlist, but after listening to it I'm not the biggest fan, so at a loss. There are a bunch of song on there with "baby" in the title, and of course Salt N Pepa's Push It.

I'm thinking I want upbeat love songs. Country, pop, 70's, 80's, 90's. A few mellow ones, but I anticipate my labor will be a mix of excitement and fear/pain/the real stuff. I don't need something to mellow me out when I'm excited and nervous, and I don't think I'll be receptive to something too mellow when it's all really happening. But I guess I should have it all on there...

We'll use a good old fashion ipod with portable speakers, and have it on DH's iphone as well. When all else fails, we have Pandora.

WombThereItIs

I am with @bacorrea I want biology to do it's job and help me block out the unpleasant stuff in my memory. Music would have the opposite effect. 

I am all for watching movies or Netflix binging though. 

Hansolosparka

I watched the Star Wars trilogy (obvi) while I was in labor. I'd rather watch a movie or tv for distraction than listen to music but that's me!  I heard a lot of people planned playlists though!

hp_momma

+1 for no birthing playlist. My labors were super quick anyways and I used the time to chat with the nurses, DH, etc. I totally binge watch Netflix after delivery on the first night when I'm on an adrenaline rush + nursing baby! 

mamatowildones

Didn't do one for my second but for my first we had a lot of John Mayer, jack Johnson, frank Sinatra and the rest of the rat pack... and probably had country too. All I know is "free fallin" was what was on when he was born haha 

kat81

So...leading up to the big day I tried to plan for this and it was one of the things that DH was furiously stuffing into our mounds of luggage when we STARTED to pack the hospital bags while I was already in labor, because we're stupid idiots (DS was only 4 days early...not like 4 weeks.)

We made the assumption that first timers don't go early (WHY?!)
We also made the assumption that first timers have long labors (again, why?)

Then, we didn't realize just how much progress I was able to make at home before going in. During the home time, I tried to watch crappy tv on hulu and take a bath and I should have gotten the hint that while the pain was perfectly tolerable, it was notable that I found it to be too much to really watch / pay attention to a tv show.

We had thought having music was this really important thing to do. I think we had brought along Rage Against the Machine and some other music like that that I liked but is kind of empowering/energy-ish. But by the time we got to the hospital I was entering transition. When you're in transition you just feel like you're going to die and at least in my experience there's nothing music is going to do either way to have an impact on anything.

So basically I laugh at this whole concept of music now! We both over-packed (packed for labor stuff) and under-packed (not enough for post-partum).

As for #2 we knew more what to expect with my labor and got to the hospital earlier. I suppose we could have brought music but I still felt like it was easier to just focus on the task at hand and not have something in the background. That said, I love music and I study&teach the psychology of music as a side-interest, so I'm actually quite open to revisiting the idea of music as a distraction/pain relief (afterall, the research says it does work for this purpose!)

JCWhitey

I never had a playlist and didn't have desire to listen to music with either of my other labors, but all of these videos of moms dancing in labor make it looks like it could really help with pain management and get things going.  I was super cramps yesterday and was dancing in my shower and it did help.  Then my mom reminded me that when I was in labor with my son I kept going into the middle of the room and swaying my hips and kept saying it felt really good.  Sooo, I'm thinking this time I may come up with some danc-y music to have on hand in case it seems like something I might want.  I was dancing to Pink in my shower and most of her music is pretty easy to dance to so I'll probably just have Alexa play a mix for me,

JCWhitey

@kat81 Haha, that was me with my first, too!  No hospital bag because I assumed I had all the time I needed the world (I was 9 days early) and labor was only 5 hours so by the time I got to the hospital I was in transition.  And I agree, music would not have been welcomed at that point.  Even my poor husband wasn't welcomed at the point!   My daughter's labor was 3x longer and reflecting back I think music would have been nice to have, at least in the beginning because my first stage of labor took FOREVER and was honestly quite boring.  I ended up watching two episodes of Castle and an episode of Shark Tank during it.  It wasn't bad enough that I couldn't focus on something, but was bad enough that I couldn't sleep.  So I'm planning music for #3, but not putting much thought into it.  My Alexa Dot is always in my purse since she travels between work and home with me, so I'll just be sure I have her with me when I go.

kat81

JCWhitey said:

@kat81 Haha, that was me with my first, too!  No hospital bag because I assumed I had all the time I needed the world (I was 9 days early) and labor was only 5 hours so by the time I got to the hospital I was in transition.  And I agree, music would not have been welcomed at that point.  Even my poor husband wasn't welcomed at the point!   My daughter's labor was 3x longer and reflecting back I think music would have been nice to have, at least in the beginning because my first stage of labor took FOREVER and was honestly quite boring.  I ended up watching two episodes of Castle and an episode of Shark Tank during it.  It wasn't bad enough that I couldn't focus on something, but was bad enough that I couldn't sleep.  So I'm planning music for #3, but not putting much thought into it.  My Alexa Dot is always in my purse since she travels between work and home with me, so I'll just be sure I have her with me when I go.

interesting, another myth debunked -- you always go faster with successive pregnancies! I am sort of taking for granted that this one will go as the other two did (I labored for just about the same amount of time and on the same schedule) but I guess I should be prepared for the last one to take longer randomly!

MrsFreeman2010

I didn't have music but did watch a lot of HGTV because it didn't require a lot of focus to follow a plot line.  If I feel like music this time I might just do a random Spotify playlist or pandora. Nothing really planned 

JCWhitey

@kat81 Minus my 2nd being born earlier (she was 22 days early) my second pregnancy did not follow any of the usual assumptions.  My labor was longer and harder.  I didn't show until almost 10 weeks after I showed with my first.  And I think I felt her later, too.  I think part of the reason I found the first stage so dang boring was because I rushed to the hospital right away because everyone was telling me it would be soooo fast.  So I got there ready for things to get going and then all I had was contractions 7 minutes apart for 9 hours.  Snooze.  Should have stayed home.  Not that I have an option because the hospital is 2.5 hours away.

redheeler

Have to admit that I'm actually glad to hear some people have had second labours go longer! DS was born in 1.5hrs but was induced (i realise this can speed things up) but I'm an hour from the hospital so I've been worried about it! 
I still want to err on the side of caution and go early though 

vrj0522

I created a playlist with my first and then ended up not using it so I did nothing with my second and didn't miss it at all. With that said, I feel like I did better at pain management the first time, probably because that's when I took the child birthing class and I had all those techniques fresh in my mind, so I need to find a way to remember and practice relaxing techniques this time so I can cope better than last time. I don't know maybe a playlist of my favorite relaxing musing could help with that. I hadn't thought about this until now but I might end up creating one.  

BabyMC517

I love music, but I can totally tune out or start thinking of other things while its on, so I'm not sure if would help or not. I can tune out TV shows too and thought having Netflix of Hulu would be good just to have on in the background and talking to H. I really have no idea what's going to help! 

nda_roxybabe

I'll create a playlist, but I have a feeling it wont get used. I get weird about music/ noise and lights when I'm not feeling well.

The playlist will likely have a lot of our wedding songs: The Shins, Death Cab, Frou Frou...

psherman42wwsa

last time around I downloaded some apps that had relaxing music. When it came down to it, I wasn't in the mood and it didn't even cross my mind. For me, I think music playing in the background would be more of an annoyance.