Here’s a sad but true fact… our first, most natural instinct we have about parenting is wrong.
Now don’t worry… I’m not trying to make any of us feel bad about failing as a parent. You haven’t failed! You’ve just fallen victim to a common misconception that says when you bring your new baby home, you must bring it to a quiet peaceful environment.
Let’s back up a little to when your baby was still in the womb. My own personal misconception
about the womb (and let me stress, this was mine… not suggesting this thought is common place amongst everyone) was that the womb was this quiet, peaceful, warm, soft and squishy baby wonderland. Now maybe the later half of my assumption was true, but definitely not the first. The womb is a LOUD place. Experts estimate the volume inside the womb is around 75 decibels. Just to give you something to compare that to, that’s about how loud your gas powered lawnmower is. Granted the fluids in the womb and in your baby’s ears block out some of that noise, but the fact is, every day of their life from when they are able to start hearing (at around 18-20 weeks), they are bathed in constant, LOUD noise.
Now imagine everything suddenly changing (birth). You suddenly find yourself in a bright, quiet, far less compact world. That’s gotta be stressful! As parents we are getting most things right when we try to calm our babies and get them to sleep... we turn out the lights, we swaddle them, BUT we keep it quiet. To a baby, quiet = stress.
By introducing white noise sleep sounds to a baby’s sleep routine we are giving them that other critical piece of the puzzle that babies need. Quality baby sleep is dependent on reducing their stress and putting them at ease. And we achieve this by adding the one thing they are the most familiar with… noise.
Even though I know this I’m always amazed by a couple of babies that some moms bring to the gym I go to. Like most gyms, mine is loud… rockin’ music, trainers shouting encouragement, the constant ruckus of equipment being used… and yet these babies sleep through it ALL. One of the babies I have actually never seen awake. Bringing them to the gym is bringing them to their normal (at least from a sound perspective).
Embarrassingly, I didn’t know the science and reasoning behind why baby sleep sounds worked when I first started Fade Away Sleep Sounds. I just knew it worked with my kinds and I knew I wanted to share that to other parents. It’s interesting in the respect that there isn’t one magical sound that works with all babies. Just like everyone, they have their own set of personal preferences, and it’s up to us, the parents, to figure out what sound connects with them. My two boys had very different tastes… one needed to hear the running water from the bathtub to fall asleep. My other needed the hair dryer… perhaps my wife blew dried her hair a lot when carrying him. Who knows!
Whatever sound you stumble across that helps soothe and calm your baby, congratulations, because you are one of the few who realizes that a fundamental key to your baby’s peace, is NOT quiet.