We live in an old house that does not have central air. In each of the bedrooms we have window unit air conditioners. I was so excited to put these in this summer because I knew it would create white noise and Little Guy (or all the other sounds from outside) would not wake Princess up. Any time Princess or Little Guy go down for a nap or for the night, I turn the air conditioner on.
Hubby is telling me that we can not keep the air conditioner in all winter. He doesn't understand that we have to. He says something about it not being heat efficient or something like that. Anyhow, I see his point.
I am freaking out about having no white noise. Princess will wake up at Little Guy's first cry. Little Guy will wake up from the trash truck. I will never get sleep or some quiet time!!
Please help! What do you or did you do for white noise?
12 comments:
I have gotten my girls used to listening to music. I have a small CD player in each of their rooms that plays children's worship music. All I do is tuck them in for a nap or bedtime & hit the play and repeat buttons. Then when they wake up they turn it off themselves. Hope this helps!!
You can always buy one (or two) of those noise machines. However, from personal experience, I would recommend just getting them use to having nothing. They will learn to sleep through external noises.
We let the girls listen to music as they went to sleep and they became soooo dependent on it that when we'd travel or have them go to sleep in a different environment, they couldn't do it. At least in their minds, they become completely dependent on the music to fall asleep.
After this became a ridiculous problem, we took away the music and made them go cold turkey.
They can now sleep anywhere despite what is going on around them. There's no question that kids are creatures of habit. It's just a matter of what habit you are going to establish.
If you want, you can send them over to our Baby Boot Camp. We offer it a couple of times a year!
Wow! We do sound like mean parents. I love it!
You could always run a small fan if you want the noise. Living in the area you do, I could see why you would want it. You have pretty busy streets that are very close to your house.
I have to agree with Natalie.
I also agree with Natalie...probably not the response you were hoping for! But, a small fan on the lowest setting might help ease them into it for awhile. But, then I would go cold turkey, at least for Princess.
I hear your pain! We had always done the silence, regular environmental noise thing but then one of the kids got really sick and since they were sharing a room at the time, the running humidifier got them hooked. So, to avoid the build up of mold and mildew that would come from running a humidifier year round, The Boss went on line to pharmacy.com and bought some of those noisemakers.
And we've allowed them to set the pace for ditching the need for the noise. We just felt that although learning the flexibility of sleeping anywhere, thru any background noise is the IDEAL, each kid was different and would approach it differently. Now, all three of the boys sleep without noise or nightlights, and LadyBug is working on turning hers down every other week or so. She also sucks her thumb, a HUGE NO-NO to many parents, but again, in the long-term view of parenting, we know the ideal and are willing to walk thru the stages of transition at her pace. I'm sure she'll not be sucking her thumb and needing white noise in college!
Good luck - you can probably find a good mix or balance in the ideas submitted here. And love this new idea - very wise of you to seek counsel and weed through the advice to see what works for your crew!
I second the fan!
We've done the combination weaning approach. We don't go backwards once we've lowered the white noise... except for illnesses or extreme desperation. I also would go near the baby room or in the bathroom next to it at a time in the night when they sleep best (or go back to sleep the easiest) to build up their tolerance for noise.
We especially worked on training them to go back to sleep when they wake. Now we can go into their room to put clothes away or open/close a window, and they usually don't even wake up. Sometimes they stir, but then settle. They even share a room now. Our oldest wakes for bathroom breaks and youngest cries when he's cold and doesn't know how to cover back up when half asleep, and neither wakes the other during these occurences!
Hang in there! Decide what your goal is (uninterrupted sleep now or learning to sleep in various situations) and try out what works for you.
We use a fan which we got from Linens & Things for $8 and it is noisy. We also use baby lullabies. The fan works better.
We initially did the music thing, but did not want our little guy to be dependent on something like that, and now he does not have anything. He does suck and paci and has his favorite blankie, but most kids have something like that.
You have a lot of advice, so my main advice to you is to take all of these things to the Lord and ask Him what He has for your kids. It might take a few nights of adjustment for your kids, but they will make it through!
I agree with Natalie and yet my boys do listen to worship music. We started this with Jeter because he would wake up from nightmares and when we prayed about it we believed we needed to change his environment. Enter worship. Jeter is definitely dependent on the music but he can also fall asleep without it. Barber likes his worship music too but is not dependent at all - he also didn't ever struggle with nightmares.
And if you're curious, Jeter listens to Rita Springer and Barber to Vineyards 'Hungry' CD.
Well, I think praying about it is always the best solution. We have at least four white noise machines that we use every night. I don't how we survived for so many years without them!!! We first got them because traveling to our families' homes with a zillion children sleeping at various times was just insane, and it seemed more respectful to our children to allow them to sleep in some peace rather than complete medlum--plus vacations didn't seem quite so relaxing when we were waking up at 6:00 a.m. Now, it just helps to know there's a noise barrier if other kids in our own house get up early or are up later--and we put one in the guest room for all our guests who aren't used to big, noisy families. :) You can get them at Wal-Mart for about $12, I think, and the ones with a clock are handy for traveling, too. I've never noticed that they were dependent on them for going to sleep; we just wanted to keep everyone sleeping longer.
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