My daughter is 5 months old and she has not slept through the night before, but she used to just wake up to eat and then would go back to sleep easily. We could sometimes hear her stirring when it wasn't time to eat (on the monitor) but she would go back to sleep on her own just fine. I think she is getting ready to sleep through the night, but now she is waking up and crying rather than going back to sleep on her own. She doesn't want to eat. If I pick her up she goes back to sleep pretty quickly, but if I leave her there she cries (real tears, not just whining). For the last week before this started happening we had a cool mist humidifier running in her room when it was so cold and dry and she was getting really stuffed up at night. I am trying to figure out what is causing this change. I think it might be that she got used to the white noise and now when she wakes up and doesn't hear it she can't go back to sleep as easy. Does this seem logical to anyone else? How does everyone feel about sleeping with white noise? I would rather she could sleep without the humidifier running, but I don't want to risk her sleep because of it. Any suggestions would be very helpful.
Thanks,
D.
Thank you all for your responses to this request. I know this thank you is a long time coming but we are still working on the night sleeping and I think we probably will be for the rest of the time my daughter is living at home : ) We tried getting a quieter humidifier (cool mist vaporizer) for her room and it seemed to help a bit but then my husband said he thought her room was too cold and damp because of it, so we stopped using that. I tried a white noise machine as well on a couple of settings and just had it on for 30 minutes. It did not seem to help at all. We are back to holding her until she falls asleep, along with a good night-time routine and it seems to be working. She still wakes up to eat but goes back down easily most nights. Some nights are good, some are not. I am starting to realize this is just the way it is.
Thanks Again.
It may just be a coincedence. If she is stuffy because it's dry in her room that will wake her. Perhaps she's teething? That causes occasional stuffiness. It can also make her wake more. I personally don't think white noise is bad at all. It's better than letting them fall asleep to a TV! If it works and it makes her and you happy, go with it! Good luck.
D.,
My daughter is 12 months old and still uses a noise machine... the sound of the ocean. She has been using this since she was about 3 months old. I suppose one day we will have to stop using it, but for now I say if she is sleeping with it, why stop? Just me!
We have a mechanical white noise machine (the ones that come on clocks and radios drive me crazy - they just sound irritating to me, like static, but that might just be me) and we used it with my younger son for a while. He didn't get addicted to it and can sleep without it, but I found it to be great for naps and for traveling to grandma's house where the walls are thinner and the kids get woken up by strange sounds.
We chose a white noise machine because the kids (and me) have allergies and sleeping with a fan just moves the dust around. The device I bought is called a Sleep Mate, and I got it from JC Penney. It was about $40. It's very basic but does the trick.
Hi D.~
My son was similar to this...We acutally ended up putting a fan in his room. We let it run at night, and for his naps too. We just keep it on the low setting, and point it away from his body when it is this cold out. That way its not being used to cool him, just using the noise to help soothe him. It seems to help him sleep a little better.
Good luck!!
J.
D.,
My child and I sleep every night with white noise. Sleep machines have been a lifesaver for me for many years. I'm sure I need them more than my baby does.
Also, teething pain can begin as early as 4 months, though you might not see any teeth for quite awhile.
Overall, it sounds like your daughter is a good sleeper, so I'm sure you will work this out soon.
Good luck.
Amy
When our daughter was younger, we lived in ohio and she got a bad cold once. We used a humidifier and it seemed to help her sleep. Well after the cold when we took the humidifier out of her room she stopped sleeping so well. Then we moved to he city into a small apartment where you could hear a lot of noises. So we put the humidifier back in her room, but we don't put water in it unless she is stuff. I think having white noise is very soothing to children and I would keep it in there if she slept better. My daughter is going to turn 2 march 8th and she still sleeps with a humidifier, but she can sleep without as well but she doesn't sleep as well(stirs a couple of times through the night). So my suggestion would be to stick with what seems to work.
A.
Hi D..
I am going to go in a different direction than everyone else here. My daughter is 5 1/2 monhts old. SHe has slept with white noise (humidifier) for about 2 1/2 months. She has recently (within last 2 or 3 weeks) started doing what you are describing. She is waking in the middle of the night. She doesn't want/need to eat. She wants us to run in there and soothe her. If i pick her up or stroke her cheek she is back out immediately. I wonder if it is something that is just developmentally happening around this age or if both our babies are teething. I am not sure if the white noise will fix this but it can't hurt to try. Does your daughter have a cold or something going on which might be affecting her sleep? I guess what I am trying to say is go for the white noise and see if it fixes it but that might not be it since my daughter is going through the exact same thing and we have the noise. good luck and let us know what you find works.
it may be the white noise thing, but maybe she is cutting some teeth as well - my little guy did the same thing and within a week or so his first two pearly whites showed up.
My son has slept with a white noise machine since he was a newborn and at the time it was the only thing that would calm him down (colicky). He is now almost 3 and we take it everywhere we go with us. You can get a CD of white noise and put it on repeat or get one of those relaxation sound machine things (this is what we have) that makes different kinds of sounds (waves, birds, etc). We take it everywhere with us.
I have 15 month b/g twins & they sleep with white noise.
We live under the flight path for Ohare Airport & when it's foggy the planes fly REALLY low & vibrate the house. I've slept with an air machine for years & moved it into their room to help them sleep. Our home isn't big & we have wood floors so they can hear us walking so the white noise cuts out the foot traffic too.
I have the machine set to high & they sleep well with it. I think it also helps them realize that when I turn it on, it's time for sleep.
Hope this helps!
L. in Wood Dale
I use a white noise machine with my 19 month old twins to drown out street noise and household noise. They have had night wakings since birth and on average I've gotten 3-5 hours sleep a night (I'm also a poor sleeper myself though). I would hate to take away the white noise and have them sleep worse.
That being said, if we were all getting good sleep I might try to get rid of the noise machine because of this study: http://www.webmd.com/content/article/63/72156.htm. Basically the study is says that rat pups who had continuous exposure to white noise had delays in the development in the hearing center of the brain. Extrapolated to human babies, some believe that white noise could cause hearing and language delays.
I get a lot of pressure to stop the white noise from my father-in-law who sent me the study. What takes away some of the worry for me is that my daughters don't have constant white noise, just at night. They are TV-Free, so during the day the only real noise is the music we put on to sing and dance with. Also, they seem to be experiencing typical language development - if there were delays I might be worrying more.
My older son tended to wake at the smallest noise when he was little. Since our walls are pretty thin too, it seemed like all we had to do was walk past his bedroom and he'd wake up. We put an air filter in his room for white noise and it worked like a charm! When he started sleeping in his big bed instead of the crib, we occasionally would turn it off to see if he noticed. Sometimes he would ask for it back on, but eventually he weaned off of it at around 3 years old and sleeps fine without it now. I think a little white noise is a super idea to help kids sleep! Just think of all the noise they had while they were in the womb! I know there are also players and cds out there to simulate that sound too.
If you are looking for a white noise machine, I recently found one I REALLY like. It's the Sound Sleeper at Babies R Us. Lots of options with it and it's 19.99. I got 2 of them for the kids at nap time. They do fine with or without noise at night, but one of my sons naps with the sound machine (the other one I use for home day care kids) to drown out noise of the other kids and me moving around. My other son is attached to a Baby Einstein classical music CD. I've always played it on repeat when he naps and at night I play one round of it so it can relax him to sleep. It's always nice to not have your kids attached to things to help them sleep, but whatever works is also worth it. :) The sound machine may help in the nice weather between humidifier season and fan season. :)
We are HUGE fans of white noise machines-- we have used one in our bedrdoom for years, and bought one for our son's room when he was about 1 1/2 yrs old. They help block out incidental noise like cars and trucks driving through the alley, the sound of the TV in the living room, etc. and they help all of us sleep much better. We still hear our son if he wakes up needing something, but otherwise we all sleep soundly. You can get them on the internet in a variety of places, spend a little more ($50 - $60) for a good one with adjustable volume.
I think that you may be onto something with the white noise. They have white noise cds you can buy. We bought the vacuum cleaner cd. It just sounds like a vacuum cleaner all night long!!! Maybe you can give that a try. I got it on-line somwhere in my first few months of desperate motherhood. I don't remember where, but you could google it! hope that helps.
both of my girls sleep to a cd called 'for crying out loud.' there are ocean sounds, heartbeat, etc, but we use the vaccum track. we just set it on repeat. works like a charm. you can get the cd on babycenter.com
the exact same thing happened to us at around 4 months old, except it was the fan. as soon as we put it back things were fine. we replaced it with a humidifier this winter, and she's been fine. when we go without something, she has a rough time. she's been okay with fans, humidifiers, and air purifiers. i don't have a problem with it, as no matter where we are we should be able to find some sort of noise for her. plus it drowns out the other noises around the house, so life can go on somewhat more normally after she's down....
My son uses white noise. We bought the machine/clock at Target for $20. We got it because our place isn't so big and we felt some of our noises woke him up. It is portable so it isn't a huge deal if the baby gets "hooked" on it, just take it with you. I like hearing it on the baby monitor too :)
Hi D.,
I know you have gotten a ton of responses with regard to sleeping and white noise etc. so disregard this if you are ok with your situatuion. At 5 months we went through the same thing with our son, rocking him to sleep and I used to dread the evenings as it took so long to get him to sleep. I was opposed to control crying and didn't believe people when they said it worked but we gave it a go WITH white noise and after a week of tears (real ones) he now goes into his crib on his own and seems to look forward to it, turn on the white noise and a sea turtle we got in target and off he goes and I turn the white noise off when we go to bed....Some nights I leave it on all night, it is harmless I think and if he is going to wake, he wakes regardless of whitenoiase or not. I hope this helps and you are doing better....they are little cuties but can be draining so it is nice to relax in the evenings when they go down
We use a white noise machine (we actually have one in our room as well) and LOVE it!! I got the Homedics one at Target for around $15 and it has 5 or 6 sounds (including white noise, oceas, rain, heartbeat and others). It also has a timer, if you don't want it to run all night and it is quite compact and flat, so we take it with us when we travel...great for hotel rooms...keep out the racket from the halls etc.
I love them. I don't like total silence or background noise of cars driving by the window so we have our humidifier on high in our room. Our son has had one in his room as well pretty much from birth. In the summer, we used a white noise machine that we bought at Target I think. I see nothing wrong with becoming a little dependent on something that helps soothe us so that we stay asleep.
