Is White Noise Bad for Babies? We Spoke to a Pediatrician and Sleep Coach to Get the Scoop

You’d give your right arm to get your baby to sleep through the night—it’s about to fall off thanks to all that rocking, anyway. But you can hardly even get a solid nap out of your bundle of joy due to the fact that they wake from the tiniest noise. Sound machines are a popular solution to this age-old problem…but is white noise safe for babies? Here’s everything you need to know, according to a pediatrician and sleep coach.

Nilong Vyas, MD, is a board-certified physician and sleep coach, founder of the family sleep consulting service Sleepless in NOLA, and medical reviewer for Sleep Foundation. In addition to her extensive medical background, she’s also a mother-of-two with a personal understanding of the sleep struggle parents experience and a desire to help families get the rest they need.

There are several reasons why parents might opt to use white noise as a sleep aid for their babies. Per the expert, “research has shown that the use of white noise can benefit infants due to its ability to replicate the sound patterns experienced in the womb,” which is why it’s particularly helpful for relaxing and soothing an infant who is struggling to fall or stay asleep. Furthermore, these consistent womb-like sounds, “can help create a sense of familiarity and comfort infants, which can be an important factor in supporting their overall wellbeing,” says Dr. Vyas. Finally, parents of light sleepers might find white noise to be a useful tool in that it masks other sounds, such as that of a thunderstorm (or even just the sound of you trying to get the dishes done during naptime).

Given Dr. Vyas’s input on the use of white noise, you probably already suspect that the answer to this question is generally no, it isn’t bad for babies or toddlers. There’s a big caveat though—namely that it must be used according to certain guidelines to ensure safety. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recently sounded the alarm (so to speak) about the potential for hearing loss in infant and babies due to the misuse of sound machines and issued some rules for safe use, particularly in light of the fact that many sound machines on the market can be turned up to a volume that’s considerably higher than what’s recommended. 

According to reporting done by ABC News, to use a white noise machine safely, the AAP instructs parents to place the machine at least seven feet away from the child and limit its volume to no higher than 50 decibels, which they describe as “a volume that you or I can speak at without raising our voice.” Dr. Vyas advises that this appropriate volume is typically the middle volume setting on most sound machines and is roughly about as loud as the sound of an air conditioner running. In other words, don’t blast the thing—and if you’re using it to help a light sleeper, keep in mind that it should only be subtly masking other sounds, not drowning them out completely.

A soft, gentle ‘whooshing’ sound, low level static or even a gentle heartbeat are all examples of ambient noise that can be used to help babies sleep. According to the experts at The Sleep Store, deeper sounds like that of wind and rain are examples of “pink noise,” which is an alternative to traditional white noise that’s less jarring due to its lower frequency and the fact that pink noise typically self-adjusts such that the volume gets quieter when the varying sounds become higher-pitched.

There are many reasons why you might want to lessen your baby’s dependency on a white noise machine. After all, you can’t take the things everywhere and eventually it is good for children to learn how to self-soothe to sleep in a variety of conditions, including good old fashioned peace and quiet. As such, Dr. Vyas strongly encourages parents to “decrease the volume of the sound machine gradually once a child is sleeping through the night, thus moving toward eliminating it completely,” adding that, “It can still be used as needed at times of high-volume disruptions such as thunderstorms, fireworks, etc." but can otherwise be effectively phased out using this gradual approach.