Baby in Tune’s Vered Benhorin Talks New Album with Son, Therapy, and More

Baby in Tune’s Vered Benhorin isn’t just an infant (and toddler) whisperer. She’s also a postpartum mom whisperer who leverages her extensive background in psychotherapy — and songcraft — to uplift parents. Because they’re the ones who often need music (and community) the most. 

“I think our real audience, until kids are maybe like five or six, are the caregivers,” says Vered, a Montclair, N.J.-based mom and singer-songwriter who created Baby in Tune shortly after giving birth to her oldest child, who is 17. “That’s really who I’m playing for and who I’m trying to reach. It’s not important for me to connect to their baby as much as it is for me to guide them to connect to their baby.” 

It’s clear she’s latching onto something. 

Baby in Tune goes beyond traditional ‘mommy and me’ music classes many of us have experienced, in which parents and tiny tots sit in a circle with egg shakers while singing “Baby Shark.”

Alternately, Baby in Tune classes are designed to offer a safe, fun, therapeutic space where parents can sing and connect with their babies while Vered strums guitar, or leads the group in cute, engaging games. Caregivers are always encouraged to share their own challenges and milestones throughout the class. No issue is too small to sing (or chat) about in the group.

“There’s a lot of tears in my classes and we sing through it and we talk through it,” Vered tells Rockmommy.

Given how hard and tedious parenting the Pre-K set can be, it’s no wonder the Baby in Tune movement has grown —Vered has 92,000+ followers on Instagram alone, and her 2025 book, What Do I Do With My Baby All Day? has an average 4.5-star rating on Amazon (with more than 80% of readers giving it a perfect five stars). 

The irony is that Baby in Tune wasn’t part of the plan when Vered cut her teeth as a songwriter in NYC in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Rockmommy sat down with the mom of three to talk about her adorable journey and how she went from playing angsty songs about heartbreak to writing sweet, relatable earworms like “Diaper Song” from her latest album Adorable You — and celebrating mundane, everyday moments.

The edited transcript is an excerpt of the full Rockmommy Talks interview (below) between Vered and Rockmommy editor and founder Marisa Torrieri Bloom.

Rockmommy (Marisa Torrieri Bloom): Before we talk about Baby in Tune, let’s talk about your backstory: Did music come first or did mental health come first?

Vered (Baby in Tune): I would say music came first … because my parents love to sing and I just remembered them singing in harmony, like in the front seat, and me watching them. It’s some of my earliest memories.

And so I always loved music. I loved singing. I then sang with my cousins. Harmonizing just made me happy all throughout my childhood. 

I went to study music therapy because I needed a way to support myself as a singer songwriter. I was writing songs, I was recording, I was playing out … I was doing a lot of odd jobs at the time. Therapy has always been a part of me because my parents are in the therapy world as well. So I guess you could say that therapy was always there as well, but in terms of a career, I just never considered it until I really needed to make a living. And then I took it further once I had a baby. Because up until I got pregnant, my whole goal was to be a singer-songwriter, not to write stuff for babies or families or to work with families.

Rockmommy: Parenthood can change your trajectory a bit.

Vered: I remember the day that I decided actually to give up on music as a singer-songwriter. I was pregnant, my husband and I were on a trip and we were on a bus in Croatia and I put on the headphones of the latest recording I had made, the last album, and I said, I’m gonna listen to this and decide if it’s good enough. Like if it’s you know … the Beyonce level. And I listened to it and I decided it wasn’t. 

So I went to go study clinical psychology and I thought I had given up on music as a career. And then it was really my baby who ended up bringing it back for me, but it took months … the whole first six months almost I didn’t even sing to my baby because it was complicated for me.

Rockmommy: Wow, that’s so funny because I automatically [assumed] you were singing through the delivery of your baby.

Vered: I was not the Mary Poppins that I think that people assume [I was] because of what I do. It was a complicated relationship with music and with motherhood. Motherhood was very hard for me at first with breastfeeding and just, like, my own identity, my body, everything that we kind of relinquish in the first year. It was all really hard for me.

Eventually I started to sing with him and started to just write these little ditties. I would just write about what I saw him doing, what I was doing, what I was feeling, what we were both doing together. And I didn’t think much of these ditties … I just saw the way he lit up when he heard me sing as I spoke as opposed to speaking.

And then I was at my producer’s house and I was just playing these songs I had written for the baby and he came back and said, ‘What was that? We need to record those.’

Rockmommy: What were your songs about before parenthood compared to now?

Vered: Yeah, I mean they were sort of the self-obsessive singer-songwriter songs about like my own existential angst. A lot of it was, like, life in New York City. 

Rockmommy: So you started singing these songs and your producer heard something. Then, what happened?

Vered: It took me a while to say, like, okay, ‘I guess let’s record an album for babies.’ And we did, and the recording went so well because the songs were very personal. I mean, it still was sort of singer-songwritery, but it was also somewhat utility. Like there was a morning song, there’s a song about making faces, there’s, you know, a sleep song, like, stuff that I was doing with my baby during my day. 

And so the album sort of takes parents through their day. And then once I had done that, I was already studying clinical psych, I had already become the music therapist. Everything kind of came together because suddenly I realized, ‘wait a second, I can help parents connect to their baby.’ I’ve been in a place where I haven’t been feeling connected, I know what works.

I know that music and mindfulness and play work and I know how to teach parents because I’ve learned about attachment theory, you know, I’ve learned music theory. And so everything kind of came together. The music therapist, the psychotherapist, the mom, the rock star, it all kind of came together to form what my career became, which was Baby in Tune and and also creating these albums.

Rockommmy: And then you had two other kids, right?

Vered: And then I had two other kids and each one inspired an album … I have two boys and then a daughter. And when she came, I was even more interested in the sibling dynamic. So the first two albums are really about parent and baby interaction. By the third one, I was fascinated by how siblings interact and everything that happens and what happens to the oldest when there’s a new one? What happens to the middle? And so that the album, the third album, is called Songs for Sisters and Brothers, and it’s all about the sibling dynamic. And then I thought I was done, actually. I thought, that’s it. One album per kid, three albums for families. That’s it.

Rockmommy: So let’s talk about the books, albums, and the Baby in Tune movement.

Vered: Yeah, it was surprising to see how parents responded to the music. As a singer-songwriter, I played all the places that you probably know, the Living Room and Rockwood and Arlene’s Grocery, and … just did a lot of that circuit, did some college tours. And yes, you gain an audience, but it’s sort of smallish unless you blow up. 

But I didn’t blow up … and so when I put out these albums and the parents responded the way they did, I was like, ‘my God, wow, this is the audience, you know, that I really have been gearing toward.’ Because I needed to go through the singer-songwriter phase because the songs that I write for parents and babies, they are very personal. They’re not just lullabies … it’s not just, like, ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider.’ They’re really about the parent as well. So I needed to come from that angle. And it just kept me going. It was just so gratifying, both the way they responded to the music and also to the classes.

Rockmommy: I’m glad you mentioned that because I was going to ask, what makes Baby in Tune different? I’ve done a couple of mommy-baby classes that were taught by exceptional musicians, but my kids didn’t respond. The therapy is a huge component of [Baby in Tune], right?

Vered: I believe so because I think our real audience, until kids are maybe like five or six, are the caregivers. And so that’s really who I’m playing for and who I’m trying to reach. It’s not important for me to connect to their baby as much as it is for me to guide them to connect to their baby … that’s what I’m doing in the classes too. I give the parents an opportunity to talk about how they’re feeling. So we talk about the highs the lows they’re having, we open it up for discussion. There’s a lot of tears in my classes and we sing through it and we talk through it.

Rockmommy: I want to talk about your album and where you are now. I saw a very heartwarming video of you with your son through the ages and how that inspired your album.

Vered: So that first baby that brought me back to music, really, and brought me into this career … over the years, he sang with me. When he was a baby, he listened, then he sang with me, then he started to play instruments along with me. He started to perform in my shows.

Eventually we started harmonizing together, exactly the way I used to harmonize with my cousins. And at some point when he was around 15, he said to me, ‘Do you think you’re gonna make another album?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know. It’s a big project. It costs a lot of money.’ And he said, ‘Well, if you did, maybe I would do it with you.’ And I thought, ‘OK, this is an offer I cannot refuse.’

And so we did. At first, I said to him, ‘Wait a second, so are you gonna be okay with writing, like, a diaper song?’ He was like, ‘well, it’s not my favorite, but okay, if we must.’ And so then we set out to write an album. And it was a really amazing experience to write with that baby who inspired everything and now he was writing songs for other babies.

Rockmommy: That’s such a full circle moment. Is he pursuing a career in music or he just enjoys it and he doesn’t know yet?

Vered: You know, he’s so practical … he’s studying chemical engineering [and] he’s minoring in music.

Rockmommy: What is your new album called?

Vered Benhorin: So it’s called Adorable You and there is a song on there called “Adorable You,” which is all about how … at every stage your baby is so cute and you say to yourself, ‘this is the best one. This is the best stage because my baby is laughing now,’ or ‘this is the best stage, ’cause now my baby is walking and running’ or ‘like now we can actually play.’ At every stage you say that, but then you realize that the next stage after is even better.

Rockmommy: Thanks for talking to us. Any shows coming up or other events?

Vered: I have one coming up on October 2nd in LA at the Grammy Museum. Anyone can sign up, can buy a ticket for that. And I’m doing classes in New Jersey and New York. The way the classes work usually is that a parent reaches out to me and says, ‘hey, I want to organize one for a group’ — it’s the best. I get to help parents, you know, feel even more love for their baby and also gain a bunch of new friends.