Some of the best pre-baby advice I ever got (that I actually took) was along the lines of playing white noise or static to calm a fussy baby. In the olden days of our babydom, our parents may have run a vacuum or put us on the dryer, but living in energy-conscious Berkeley, you can’t do that stuff all night long.
As recommended by my friend Lori, we started out (even in the hospital) by playing a groovy, new agey Transitions cd that simulates womb sounds. This “music” is so powerful that it should not be used while driving because it causes grown people to zonk out immediately. Coupled with sleep deprivation and the confusion of a newborn, we had to move away from that cd after a few weeks because of our hallucinations.
Our next attempt was a very mellow, plain discovery to play “pink noise” for Holden while sleeping. We downloaded the sound from this site and play it continuously through the night on a loop. Rookie Dad, Alec, created a one-hour version of this (he did some fancy editing).
In the meantime, Whitney invested in this sound machine to play the white noise for her son (and replace the need to tie up the mp3 player looping static all the time) and I watched cautiously before committing to a solution that cost money.
Well, we later jumped on the Homedics bandwagon for less than $20 to have a more portable, simple solution [and 14 months later, we're still going strong!].
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Before the baby we had a fan in our bedroom running at night so the white noise machine was as much for us as it was for our newborn. It has been working out very well, in addition I think it helps create a nighttime cue. 11 weeks old and she is consistently sleeping 7 to 9 hours straight at night so something must be working. My only complaint would be that all but one or two of the sound options involve water, which could lead to frequent trips to the bathroom even if the baby is sleeping all night long.
The Homedics thing souvds great. We use a CD of ocean waves that plays continuously. It really works.
We use a CD of hair dryer noise from purewhitenoise.com - works like a charm!
We use a “white noise” MP3 from
http://www.thewhitenoisealbum.com it was only $4.99 for the download and it works great!
Believe it or not, we use our vicks heat or warm humidifer. On high it produces something inbetween white/pink noise that when cranked that zonks out our lil one in no time. The added benefit is that it moistens and calms…lol $29.95 at Target
My baby LOVES the soothing sounds from http://www.BabySleepSound.com and is usually asleep within minutes of playing them. We bought several, because at $3.99 per download the price is a steal! Her favorite sounds seem to be “Womb Sounds” or “Vacuum Cleaner” or “Hair Dryer” but any of the ones the we bought work great. I’ve given CDs from this website to friends as baby shower gifts and everyone that I’ve given them to has LOVED them!
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