Why Babies Like White Noise: Benefits, Risks, and Safe Usage
For parents, ensuring baby (and therefore the whole family) gets a good night's sleep is a top priority. A modern sleep innovation, white noise is a calming non-lullaby that could soothe your baby at night. Why does white noise help babies sleep and how can you use white noise with your little one?
Babies love white noise. Let’s start with looking at it from baby’s perspective. They’ve just spent their entire life in the womb. And the womb is deafeningly loud. It is just slightly less loud than a lawnmower. Loud is normal to a baby. Life outside the womb is uncomfortably quiet.
White noise is hands down the most effective, easiest to implement, inexpensive sleep aid for babies. It is also the sleep aid that parents most frequently DON’T use or they don’t use it CORRECTLY. I’ve had parents tell me they don’t want to use white noise because they are afraid their baby will become addicted. Or they don’t want to have to invest in a $70 white noise machine from the Sharper Image catalog.
What is White Noise?
Before diving into the benefits of white noise for babies, let's clarify what it actually is. Think of white noise as the auditory equivalent of a blank canvas. This noise is a consistent sound that encompasses all audible frequencies, creating a soothing blanket of noise around 20 hertz (Hz). A simple “shhhh” seems almost too good to be true as a sleeping tool. In its essence, white noise is thought to be reminiscent of the womb.
Benefits of White Noise for Babies
- Helps Babies Sleep Longer: White noise helps babies sleep longer by helping them feel more secure.
- Creates a Familiar Environment: Your baby’s new world is an odd dichotomy of silence and out of control sounds. On the one hand, your baby feels the loss of that comforting rhythm of your body, making the world seem unnaturally quiet. On the other hand, sounds like siblings, traffic, the television, and the like can make the world seem too loud.
- Calming Effect: Continuing with the theme of calm familiarity, white noise creates a cocoon-like bubble for your baby to fall asleep in.
Babies get stressed about just about everything. They’re stressed when they’re over-tired, they’re stressed because their world is more stimulating than they’re ready to handle, they’re overwhelmed with lights, faces, and excitement. They fall asleep more easily and stay asleep longer.
Babies have what are called “sleep arousals”, usually about every 20-45 minutes. Ever wonder why your baby only naps for 20 minutes at a time? Well it’s because when she hits her sleep arousal at the ~20 minute mark she is unable to fall back into deeper sleep and thus her nap is over. White noise helps babies gently navigate these arousals to get longer, more restorative naps.
There’s some concrete science behind this tranquil phenomenon. Our little one’s brain cycles in and out of “deep sleep” and “light sleep” around every 20 minutes, which can lead to a significant number of mid-slumber wakeups.
Did you know that shushing is a sound that people universally understand and make with babies? Shushing is simply white noise that you make yourself. The key to using white noise (sushing or from a radio) to help calm a crying baby is that it needs to be LOUDER than the crying. Holding a screaming baby while shushing like a gentle librarian is useless. Your baby can’t hear the shushing over his own crying. You need to shush LOUDLY (sounds a bit ridiculous I know) so that the calming noise can penetrate above the crying. Also you may need to continue to shush for a while. Loud sustained shushing can be a challenge.
How to Use White Noise Effectively
A relatively famous study showed that babies had a significant reduction in the risk of SIDS if they had a fan in their room. Nobody knows why the fan helps - it could be my moving the air around although many believe it has to do with the white noise the fan makes. Parents notoriously wake up every time the baby grunts or gurgles (and babies are NOISY CREATURES). Newborn swings can also be quite noisy, especially when they’re banging away mere inches from your bed.
When your baby is older (generally after their 1st birthday) you can gradually start to decrease the volume of the white noise. If they continue to sleep well, you’re done. Any old boom box, stereo, or alarm clock will work. In fact you can probably use the alarm clock in your your bedroom. You have a baby now, you no longer NEED an alarm clock. Simply set it to static (if you have a hard time finding a good static station on the FM dial, try searching on AM), turn up the volume, and you are all set.
Put your radio where the baby primarily sleeps (probably your room). When the baby moves into his/her room, the white noise device goes too. Turn the volume up to roughly 50 db (approximately the volume of somebody taking a shower if you are standing in the bathroom). It should definitely be louder than you think. It shouldn’t be UNCOMFORTABLY loud (if it bothers YOU, it’s probably too loud). Leave the white noise on whenever your baby will be sleeping.
Whatever you are using to make white noise should be continuous. If you have a particularly fussy baby or are looking for ways to survive the dreaded witching hours, you may want to bring your white noise maker out into living room (or wherever you like to grind through the fussy part of the day) to help create a calming environment for your fussy baby.
Newborn sleep can always be improved in the first few weeks. Remember what we always say here: sleep is a learned behavior. That means that as our baby grows, we can always improve their sleep patterns, dialing in exactly what we need to in order to create a successful sleep schedule. Babies should be sleeping with continuous white noise until they are at the very least, two years old.
Potential Risks and Safety Measures
Is white noise the sound of peace? While white noise can be incredibly beneficial for most babies, it's essential to use it safely and judiciously. After all, your baby’s ears are delicate and developing organs. In fact, any sustained noise level above 50 dB, which is equal to moderate rainfall or dishwashers, can lead to damage in an infant’s ears.
Despite the potential benefits, white noise doesn’t always offer risk-free peace and quiet.
In 2014, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) tested 14 white noise machines designed for infants. They found that all of them exceeded recommended noise limits for hospital nurseries, which is set at 50 decibels. The study concluded that regular exposure to these sound pressure levels may be damaging to infant hearing and auditory development.
Based on the findings of the AAP, pediatricians recommend that any white noise machines should be placed at least 7 feet away (200 cm) from your baby’s crib. You should also keep the volume on the machine below the maximum volume setting.
Safety Guidelines for Using White Noise
- Volume control: Always keep your white noise machine at a safe volume. If possible, you should check the decibel levels of your machine’s settings (using a decibel meter or smart phone app) and choose any below 50 dB.
- Duration: While you may occasionally use white noise machines outside of sleep, it’s best not to keep them running all day and night.
- Placement: The placement of your white noise machine can determine if it’s dangerous or safe for your baby. You should always place your white noise machine across the room from your baby. This serves two purposes. It keeps your baby from reaching the machine as they get older and more ambulatory.
- Machine quality: Not all white noise machines are created equal.
With Nanit, you can help build the sleep-ready environment that your baby deserves. If you’re wondering, "Do babies need a night light?" the Nanit Sound + Light machine provides the perfect solution for bedtime routines. With 11 soothing sounds, it also includes a color-customizable night light, Cry Detection and Remote Connection features, plus a smartphone app for you to easily control all settings from any location.
When using white noise with a baby, it's important to do so safely by controlling the volume, limiting its duration, placing the machine at a safe distance from the crib, and choosing a quality white-noise machine with baby-friendly settings.
Babies who respond positively to white noise might sleep better at night and during naps, but only if the white noise is consistently available. This could be problematic if your baby is in a situation where they need to sleep and the sound machine is not with them. Examples include vacations, a night at grandma’s house, or even day care. Such a scenario could become extremely disruptive for everyone involved.
It’s important to realize that white noise doesn’t work for all babies. Every baby is different when it comes to sleep needs, so white noise could end up being a trial and error process.
Are you afraid that your baby could become addicted to the white noise while you try to give him or her better newborn sleep? Don’t be! White noise is easy to wean off of. If you choose too, you can gradually start decreasing the volume each night. If your baby continues to sleep well, then there’s no more need for white noise.
Table 1: Safe White Noise Usage Guidelines
| Guideline | Recommendation |
|---|---|
| Volume | Below 50 dB |
| Duration | Use only during sleep |
| Distance | At least 7 feet from crib |
| Machine Quality | Choose baby-friendly settings |