I made the mistake of letting my toddler loose on YouTube. She found it. She found the Daddy Finger Song, and now she’s obsessed with it.
There are a couple of options when your kid is obsessed with this ear-worm. You can either embrace it or deflect your toddler to something else.
Here’s how we’re managing to stay sane in a Daddy Finger world.
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What’s the Daddy Finger Song?
Well, person who lives under a rock, if you haven’t heard of the Daddy Finger song or the Finger Family song, consider yourself lucky.
I almost feel bad exposing you to it for the first time. It’s a nursery rhyme that made its way to YouTube around 2007.
It started with a Finger Family of a Daddy, Mommy, Brother, Sister, and Baby finger. Then other variations started popping up with animals, Disney characters, and other popular cartoon characters.
Go ahead and subject yourself to it now if you haven’t already seen it:
Catchy, isn’t it? That’s why there are a BILLION videos on YouTube. And it’ll be stuck in your head all day.
Toddlers absolutely love this song because it’s simple, repetitive, and easy to sing along with. They also get to play with their fingers. Fingerplay is really fun for them!
So I get the hype from toddlers. Adults, on the other hand (pun intended), usually get annoyed by it quickly.
Embrace it! Feed the Obsession
If you think you can handle it, your kid will thank you for letting them obsess over this song.
Let them watch all of the different videos on YouTube.
You can also sing along with them and do the finger play yourself. Get some finger puppets for added fun. We sing it while I’m changing her and in the bathtub.
Get the song on your Spotify playlist or Amazon Music playlist so you can listen in the car or on the go.
We also have our Spotify hooked up to our Echo Dot so we can dance in the living room to it.
Do some Finger Family themed crafts together!
Trace your hands and draw faces on the fingers. Use stickers, glitter, pipe cleaners, construction paper, and any other art supplies you have.
You can sing the song while you color and draw. Let’s be honest, you’ll be singing it in your sleep at some point.
You can get emoji stickers on Amazon.
Deflect to something else
If you’re in the BURN IT WITH FIRE camp, and you never want to hear the Daddy Finger song ever again, I don’t blame you. But you’re going to have to find something you can tolerate instead.
You’ll have to have your kid avoid YouTube at all costs.
It’s everywhere. It’s always a suggested video on anything kid related. So unless you’re in complete control of it, don’t let them on YouTube.
Here are a few of our distractions when we want to divert away from the Finger Family:
The Wiggles
They do nursery rhymes and cute original songs.
Yes, they can be just as annoying and catchy. But the difference is that there are like 60 of them.
Toot likes every song by The Wiggles so if she wants to listen to them, I can throw on an hour of the Wiggles and not have any repeated songs.
The Wiggles are available on YouTube (if you take the control away from your kid), Hulu (as Ready, Steady, Wiggle), and Amazon.
Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood
Daniel is a favorite in our house. It’s educational and has lots of life lessons. Not just for your toddler, but for you as a parent, too!
It’s another show that has plenty of episodes that you won’t have to watch the same one over and over.
The songs repeat frequently and will get stuck in your head, but I feel like they’re better than the Daddy Finger Song.
Give it a shot. It’s available on Amazon Prime Video.
ABCMouse.com
They have some really cute videos and games for toddlers. Toot loves the Wheels on the Bus song. Here’s our review of it.
Other nursery rhymes
The Family Finger Song is a nursery rhyme so why not just divert to other nursery rhymes?
The ones we grew up with are probably easier for us to tolerate.
Check these out and see if it works for your toddler.
You can feed the obsession and deflect when you need to
Even if you want to allow your child to enjoy the Family Finger Song to their heart’s content, you still might want to save your sanity a little bit.
It’s okay to put a limit on how much or how often your toddler watches the videos or sings the song.
It’s all a phase and this too shall pass.
Do you have the Daddy Finger Song stuck in your head all day?
Let me know in the comments below!
The Salty Mamas says
This post is AMAZING. You had me laughing at loud at every paragraph ? But now it’s stuck in my head again, so I kind of hate you. So we’ll call it a draw 😉
Niki @ Toot's Mom is Tired says
Don’t worry, I spent the entire week with it in my head because I was writing and promoting this post. ?
Jojo's Mommy +4 more says
This is so funny because my toddler was very into all the YouTube videos and this song a few weeks ago, he still sings it and I think it is so adorable! He is so silly and smart for being just 2 yrs old…now it is adding colors into the songs we sing it about markers and he knows most colors. ? I never knew what a big thing it was until my nephew is singing it now. If you can bear with it daily for a couple weeks I think its a good thing for them!
Niki @ Toot's Mom is Tired says
Lol yes she does colors and animals and people for the fingers too. It’s cute!
Peter says
Love this article! my wife and I have stopped resisting the Finger Family song, it’s just easier that way. Our kids love Katie Cutie and Fiona Felt (Brilliant backgrounds!). Avoid the 3D animated ones with frozen characters etc as some are quite strange.
Preemiemom45 says
Love this article!!! My 3 year old is doing the Baby shark song,… well has been since she found out about it last year and it has just progressed. She now uses the family first names, followed by shark, followed by Doo Doo Doo Doo. Terribly sorry for getting this song stuck on any one!)
Niki at Toot's Mom is Tired says
Lol yes we are also obsessed with baby shark!