Better Alternative to While Noise Machines

As a parent, sooner or later your baby won’t sleep.  No matter how go-with-your-gut you have been up to this point, the baby that doesn’t sleep enough will drive you to a book, magazine, or website to find out both what you should do, and how worried you should be.

When you get there you will be alarmed to find out that a baby should be getting 12 to 16 hours of sleep and your precious one is barely scraping by on 9 or 10 hours of sleep.  You’ll want answers, a really great tip or trick that will help solve the problem of getting a baby to sleep properly.  You won’t find one.

Babies decide for themselves when the do and do not sleep.  In fact, at this age more than at any other, they will take care care of their sleeping just fine by themselves, nodding off in a loud room or crowded restaraunt with ease.

But, for a frazzled parent trying to do what is right for their baby, and who is trying to put together some sort of semblance of a life around baby’s sleeping schedule, getting baby to sleep at the “right” times is crucial.

Alas, the only advice will come in the form of not-so-helpful concepts like establishing a bed time routine, giving baby a warm bath, swaddling, or doing a certain kind of hold.  All of these things can and will work to some extent, but none of them help for the baby who gets two inches from the mattress before waking up, or for the baby who goes to sleep only to wake up just 10 minutes later.

At times like these, you’ll decide the problem is noise, either too much noise, or not enough noise.  Either way, its time to start looking at white noise machines or baby sound machines.  The only catch is, they suck, all of them.

Air Purifyier As White Noise Generator

Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.  The summer before our baby was born, we kept a dog in our home.  My wife has kind-of-sort-of allergies to certain pets, including dogs.  To help, we got a Roomba and an air purifyier.  (More on the Roomba later.)

The Air Purifier is nothing special, just a little Holmes Air Purifier unit for use in one room.  We put it in our bedroom and ran it day and night, and my wife slept fine, the dog allergens kept at bay by the filter.

By the time our baby was born, it had been relegated to the floor in a back office.  But, when our precious little girl suddenly went from sleeping easily all the time she needed to being woken up at the slightest sound, we went researching.  We even called our pediatrician’s office, who having heard this a million times before, suggested we put a fan in her room

We didn’t have a fan that I liked the idea of putting in her room, but I remember sleeping like a baby while the air purifier ran.

We tried it first on low, with no success, and then on medium.  It worked like a champ.  As a double bonus, she has clean(er) air in her room too!

The best part is that I didn’t have to be frustrated by buying and returning a dozen white noise machines or gentle nature sound machines that wouldn’t turn up loud enough, or didn’t make the right kinds of sounds, or that cost $200. 

My simple $50 air purifier worked for everyone.