I thought I’d post this for anyone who has or is about to have a new baby. When my son was a newborn, he was very fussy. I made a white noise track to help him calm him down to sleep. It worked well enough that when I went back to a daddy boot camp as a “veteran dad”, I brought CD’s of it for everyone there. The track is 75 minutes of my vacuum cleaner, with the volume steadily decreasing. When I used it, I made sure it was loud enough that it got the baby’s attention, but not so loud that it would damage their hearing. Once I knew it had their attention, I turned it down a little.
If you skip to the 3:18 mark, you’ll see Dr. Harvey Karp explain the white noise principle:
I strongly recommend Dr. Karp’s book, The Happiest Baby on the Block. It was a lifesaver for my wife and me.
Feel free to pass this link on to anyone you might think needs it (just right-click and “Save Target As…”):
White Noise mp3 (51.9 MB)
Happy parenthood, everyone!