White Noise

Trying to get kids to sleep through the night is extremely tiring for parents. You’re up way more than you want to be, and almost certainly than is better for your health. When you’re tired, your patience is going to be lower than normal, and it’s just really easy to be more stern or upset than you normally would be. Sleep deprivation is a real problem, and it can often just make getting kids to sleep all the more frustrating.

Teaching your kids to sleep through the night is going to be one of the first things you really want to accomplish as a parent. It will make so many other responsibilities of being a parent that much easier. Of course, if it was that simple, then you almost certainly would have had your child sleep trained very early on in life.

While I’ve written guides on teaching kids to sleep through the night in the past, I wanted to focus in on one trick that can really work wonders. White noise is something that can really soothe your child, and allow them to cleanly fall asleep on their own. While it doesn’t work for every baby, it actually is surprisingly effective for many. If you’ve never tried before, then give it a shot.

White noise is simply a consistent background noise that you turn on in your child’s room that gives them something to hear, and really focus their minds on. The white noise helps to drown out the other noises that may wake your child up, or that may keep them from being able to fall asleep.

The best option for white noise is actually a machine that is dedicated to it. It’s also the most expensive option. The reason a white noise machine is ideal is because it’s specifically designed to keep the sound consistent, and without breaks. A dedicated machine will constantly play the exact same noise without you being able to hear where the sound is looping, and it will do it forever (or however long you set it for).

Another option is to simply download a white noise app to your phone (or an extra phone if you have one), and use that in the baby’s room. These can also work really well, but all of the apps that I’ve tried in the past generally have a loop that you can hear. When all your hearing is white noise, a gap where the track loops is actually pretty obvious, and can actually pull your child out of their sleep. If you’ve never tried white noise, you may want to start with an app first to see if it will work for your child.

There are all kinds of different sounds for white noise from vacuums to dripping water. The apps and devices will all have different options for what noise they have available through them, but you should have plenty of choices in case your child doesn’t like one of them. My son loved the water for the longest time.

I wouldn’t start your child on white noise right from birth or early on. You don’t want to hook them on white noise being required to fall asleep if you can help it. Ideally, white noise is something that you use after trying other methods first. It may be that white noise is only needed for a few nights to really help your child understand how to get into a really deep sleep without you trying to rock or comfort them.

Getting sleep as a parent is often hard. Working to get your child to sleep through the night sooner rather than later will really save your sanity. Use white noise as a tool to help you accomplish that goal.