White noise at bedtime....a good idea???

[minstrel75]

I've recently discovered that the noise of a hairdryer completely soothes my 10 wk DD and enables her to go off to sleep without needing to be fed/rocked/patted to sleep. But is this just as much of a prop as all the other things and will I still need to switch a hairdryer on for her when she's 25!!! Had been hoping that she would find her fingers as she has been desperately trying to jam them in her mouth but she can't quite manage it yet (worked a dream with my elder DD). Would love to hear if anybody else has used this and whether it became a problem.

TIA.

we use a white noise cd. not sure if it does any good, but no harm i don't think. we moved around a lot initially, from noisy to quiet and vice versa, and i wanted dd (now 9MO) to have a contant nighttime environment as much as possible, so decided to use a little white noise int he background to create this. she still has it on, but it is so quiet now as weaning her off it. not sure if it massively helped to be honest, she is not a great sleeper, but probably worth a try. we got the cd from amazon.

We use it with DS. We use a hairdryer noise MP3 on my iPod (can be downloaded free and burned to a CD if needed), as I nearly set fire to the house falling asleep with the hairdryer on! As Multicolourcat says, its a consistant noise that we can take anywhere and makes it much easier to get him to sleep away from home.

DS is nearly 6months old now and we still use it, but have gradually turned it down, with a view to phasing it out completely in the future.

Have found it an absolute lifesaver, and couldn't have done without it (without going through hundereds of hairdryers!).

We used it until DS was nearly 2. Stopped using it one day after turning it down gradually - was not a problem at all.

We probably could have stopped earlier but we couldn't break the habit

We discovered the hairdryer trick when DD was about 4 months old and still use it to get her to sleep now that she's 9 months old. I'd say, go with whatever works for you right now - I'm fairly confident I won't be needing to use the hairdryer when she's older...

...

DS is 8 months and we have used white noise, on and off, since birth. He can now manage fine without it, but I have now become dependent on it.

We used the sound of a waterfall (found it on iTunes) with DD1 & it worked a treat. When we wanted to stop using it, we just gradually turned it down a little bit every night.

We're using the same track with DD2. It's been very handy at helping to mask the sound of fireworks & the people 2 doors down who seem to demolishing their house very slowly with a large hammer.

Thanks all - glad to know that Dd won't necessarily be reliant on it. Were your babies able to settle themselves when you did stop using it or did you then have to use other things?

Thanks.

We use a fan/air purifier for both (DS1 - now 7!) Brilliant for masking background noises, phones, parties, fireworks, crying babies (DS2 13 months!).

When we go away - we take a fan, useful if we are in the same room together. I'd stick with it to be honest!

minstrel I don't think DD1 even noticed we stopped playing it & we didn't need to replace it with anything, but she has always sucked her thumb at bedtime and has a little comforter

Here's some info on white noise you might find interesting :)

I am a big fan of white noise myself....anything for some more sleep!

I forgot to mention, while DD2 is perfectly happy to listen to the soothing sounds of a waterfall on my old shuffle played through some old PC speakers, sometimes (when she is being extra picky sensitive) the exact same track played through my iPhone is much effective!

I guess the different speakers make it sound slightly different (or this is a very elaborate ploy to get us to buy her a pony phone!), so if one noise doesn't work, do try another!

My teenage daughter uses some dreamy newage musak. Same idea I guess. Very repetitive and very familiar.

We started with the hairdryer but then gradually weaned DS off onto a detuned radio as there was less probability of burning the house down. It worked a treat, but was a bit ridiculous in the sense that when we traveled we always lugged the radio with us. However, we weaned DS off it completely sometime around six months, without much trouble.