I’ve been combing through my old recordings of music for young children that I used during the days of Jump Up Music and Movement. I don’t mind saying that there are some recordings in there that I still like a lot. One is my super lullaby-ish rendition of What Shall We Do With the Baby-O (Have a listen here.).
Back in the aughts there was a brief moment when I worked for Kindermusik. Actually, I worked for an outfit called Playsongs, and the owner of Playsongs wanted to use the Kindermusik curriculum for a time. So I took their online training and got my Kindermusik certification so we could use their repertoire and equipment. I probably don’t need to tell you that I quickly discovered that it really wasn’t for me. Kindermusik is quite corporate and rigid, and doesn’t provide room for a lot of musicianship or creativity. But then again, it is designed to enable people who are not necessarily practiced musicians to do this work, so in that sense it’s valuable, and it is a way to get small children and caregivers into making music and learning through music.
The Kindermusik repertoire - at least so far as I experienced it - comes primarily out of the anglophone nursery rhyme and folk song canon, with soft, mellow arrangements and sweet-sounding vocals (of course it’s been a while, so I can’t really speak to how their curriculum may have evolved). It’s an approach that I suspect is as much intended as a balm for frazzled caregivers as it is to be appealing to very young kids. In keeping with the serene - if somewhat saccharine - aesthetic, the good folks at Kindermusik will sometimes sanitize or sweeten lyrics to songs that cross the line into darker imagery or adult-ish irony. My first encounter with What Shall We Do With the Baby-O was the Kindermusik version, which contained this couplet:
Dance her North and dance her South
Put a little honey in her mouth.
As I mentioned, I haven’t been in touch with the Kindermusik scene in quite a few years, and I’m sure they’ve updated their content since I’ve used it, but when I saw this lyric I immediately thought, “Hey, most parents know that it’s not good to give babies honey!” Odds are that you’ve seen the warning on honey labels saying that it’s not safe to give the stuff to infants younger than a year. The reason is that honey can carry botulism spores, which bigger digestive systems handle with no problem, but until about 12 months of age, little intestines can’t deal, so it’s risky. Most of the families with whom I was working were also aware of this, so that bit simply had to be reworked. I came up with:
Dance her East and dance her West.
Dance with the good folks she likes best.
All fixed. I really wanted to keep my take on the song sweet and positive. The assonance in these new lines were also more fun to sing; they felt good in my mouth, so that’s what I put into my recording. It was not until I revisited my version just a few weeks ago that I decided to look into older versions of the song. Turns out that the Kindermusik people had tidied up the lyric in their turn. I started finding versions with lyrics like:
Dance him North and dance him South.
Pour a little moonshine in his mouth.
Not really appropriate for a mellow music time with your toddlers in the current day and age.
Here are all the words according to Mama Lisa’s World, a site devoted to collecting traditional songs.
(Chorus)
What'll I do with the baby-o?
What'll I do with the baby-o?
What'll I do with the baby-o?
If she won't go to sleepy-o?
Wrap her up in calico
Wrap her up in calico
Wrap her up in calico
Send her to her Mommy-o.
(Chorus)
Wrap her up in a tablecloth
Wrap her up in a tablecloth
Wrap her up in a tablecloth
Throw her up in a fodder-loft.
(Chorus)
Tell your daddy when he gets home,
Tell your daddy when he gets home,
Tell your daddy when he gets home,
I'll give Old Blue your chicken bone.
(Chorus)
Pull her toes and tickle her chin
Pull her toes and tickle her chin
Pull her toes and tickle her chin
Throw her in the county bin.
(Chorus)
Dance her north and dance her south,
Dance her north and dance her south,
Dance her north and dance her south,
Pour a little moonshine in her mouth.
(Chorus)
Every time the baby cries,
Stick my finger in the baby's eye!
That's what we'll do with the baby-o
That's what we'll do with the baby-o!
There’s a note on the web page that the song can be found in print as early as 1917, so it’s probably a good deal older than that. There are slight variations elsewhere, but this gives you the gist.
These lyrics have the playful-but-rough, slightly shadowy undercurrent one finds in a lot of traditional songs intended for kids. It’s adults singing to themselves as much as to the children in their care, perhaps giving vent to some of the frustrations inherent in caregiving by indulging in humor that’s ironic and a little bit dark. The page linked above includes some videos of performances that are worth checking out. Most of these versions are more uptempo, while I treated my version very much as a lullaby. I recall that the Kindermusik version was slow as well. You can also hear considerable variation in the melody from one performance to the next, and the Kindermusik version and mine are different yet again from those.
I want to put you in touch with another version of this tune by renowned rock-and-roll mom, Kristin Hersh, who famously brought her young kids along while touring with Throwing Muses. It’s on her solo album Murder, Misery, and Then Goodnight (1998). She also included this verse:
Every time he starts to grin
Give the baby a bottle of gin
That's what we do with the baby
That's what we do with the baby-o
Her signature vocal work and the use of the mixolydian lowered 7th in the piano part add an extra smirky - and distinctly Hershian - quality to the whole thing. 
I did find one other adaptation that keeps it cheerier for teaching purposes. It’s by Bob Silberg
Barbara Klaskin Silberg. Here are a couple of their verses:
Rock her cradle to and fro
Rock her cradle to and fro
Rock her cradle to and fro
Cozy by the fire’s glow.
and
Bounce him on your lappy-o
Bounce him on your lappy-o
Bounce him on your lappy-o
Bounce him till he’s happy-o.
Sweet or spicy, it’s an enduring song, with lots of interesting variations.