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Soothing Sounds: Understanding the Science Behind White Noise for Infant Sleep

Helping your newborn fall asleep can be very challenging. Parents who just had their baby go through a period of two to five years when they fail to catch a good night’s sleep. However, science has helped us come up with new methods for making your baby fall asleep.

One of these methods is using soothing sounds. However, if you look back, parents have been employing this strategy since the olden days in forms of lullabies. So, what has changed? Nowadays, a lot of parents use white noise instead of lullabies to make their children fall asleep. But is white noise good for babies? In this article, we’ll discuss the pros and cons of using white noise for infant sleep in detail. So, stay with us!

What is White Noise?

White noise is often characterized as a constant hissing or static noise. Essentially, it’s a cumulation of all the frequencies audible to the human ear. As it comes with all the audible frequencies, it seems very uniform.

This special kind of noise can be produced using a sleep sound machine or a white noise machine. Some digital applications can also help you output white noise through regular speakers or earphones.

Now, it’s natural to question how white noise can help your baby sleep. It’s found that white noise is very good at burying other noises that your baby might find distracting. For example, it may bury the sound of a car honking or your neighbor’s yelling. Moreover, white noise closely mimics the sound your baby hears when it’s in the womb. This gives them a sense of security and helps them relax.

How White Noise Helps Your Baby

Here are some of the benefits that you may find by applying white noise while your baby is sleeping or trying to sleep.

Helps Fall Asleep Faster

The sound of white noise is very consistent and smooth as it doesn’t shift in pitch or melody. It shows no shift in frequency either. Thus, it’s very easy to focus on, and it’s very comfortable. So, your baby can listen to it for hours without any problem. As it helps the baby focus better, it also helps it fall asleep much faster.

Then again, the white noise tends to block out any distracting or disturbing noise. This helps ensure that your baby gets longer-lasting sleep.

Helps to Grow a Sleep Routine

You can use a sleep sound machine or white noise machine routinely. This will help your baby grow a sleep routine over time. Developing a sleep routine is necessary as it’s one of the healthiest sleep habits.

Provides Comfort

As white noise replicates the sound babies used to hear in the womb, it helps provide a sense of comfort. A sound that the baby is used to can create a masking effect. This masking effect makes the world seem more predictable to human instinct, thus giving the sensation of safety as well.

Calming Brain Responses

Research suggests that the use of white noise while putting your baby to sleep can have a calming effect on his brain. Scientists believe that white noise helps release dopamine, which is a neurotransmitter that gives the feeling of relaxation and pleasure.

Other Kinds of Noise Good for Your Baby

While white noise can help your baby fall asleep faster and make it last long, it’s not the only type of sound that works. Other kinds of noise that may be helpful in this process are as follows:

Brown Noise

Imagine white noise but with boosted bass frequencies and a rumbling quality. Brown noise sounds a lot like heavy rain or a waterfall. People who prefer boosted and heavier bass are found to prefer brown noise better.

Pink Noise

Pink noise also has boosted bass, but it lacks the rumbling quality that we can find in brown noise. In comparison, pink noise is heavier than white noise but way lighter than brown noise. You can compare pink noise with the sound of ocean waves.

Nature Sound

You can find nature sounds on different platforms such as YouTube and Spotify. It’s found that nature sounds can create a calm and peaceful space. These aren’t just good for falling asleep, but as they can help you focus, they can boost productivity as well.

Is White Noise Safe for Babies?

Now, the moment of truth. So far, we’ve seen that white noise can help your baby fall asleep fast and even improve his sleep quality. The best part is, it’s completely safe for your baby. Just like anything else, it’s not perfect and shouldn’t be something you rely on all the time.

Firstly, white noise is safe as long as it doesn’t cross the 50 dB limit. The sound of a regular conversation falls around this range. If the noise is played at a higher volume, it may damage the hearing of your child.

Secondly, white noise is great for making your child fall asleep, but at the same time, it’s creating a dependence. If your child gets too dependent on white noise, then it’ll fail to fall asleep naturally from later on. This can lead to consequences far down the line and should be moderated.

Conclusion

White noise can be really helpful in making your baby fall asleep. While this can help you create healthy sleep habits for your baby, it can also get your baby dependent, which is definitely an outcome you don’t want.

So, make sure you use white noise in a moderated way. For example, you could use white noise three or four days a week. Or, you could use it on working days or days when you’re too tired. If you can manage the strength to do so, try singing or rocking your baby to sleep.

Switching things up will help maintain a healthy balance where your baby won’t become completely dependent on white noise for sleeping.  

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