Another found that using pink noise during sleep helped boost adults’ memory. “Studies report that people fall asleep faster and move into deeper, non-REM sleep more quickly and for longer if they’re exposed to pink noise,” says Hall.Ī 2012 study published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, for example, found that when adults slept with pink noise, their brainwaves changed and they spent more time in deep sleep.
There is quite a bit of evidence to suggest pink noise can be beneficial. Some people find it difficult to sleep when listening to the hiss of white noise and prefer instead the more neutral sound of pink noise. But it’s important to look for sounds that are consistent, like rainfall, rather than recordings that contain bursts of noise, like periodically whooshing ocean waves, whale sounds or crickets chirping, which might startle a baby awake. Pink noise includes fewer of the high frequencies and is common in nature-wind, rain or a heartbeat are all pink noise. The whirr of a fan or static from a radio set between stations are both examples of white noise. White noise includes the whole spectrum of sound-from very low noises to very high ones. If you live in a smaller space or a noisier neighbourhood, white noise can help mask the sudden bursts of sounds that wake kids up, like loud traffic or a sibling yelling. “But often the families I work with will tell me they have a child that is an incredibly light sleeper, and they will wake up when there’s any noise around them, even if they’re sound asleep.”
“You could put some kids to sleep in the middle of a loud dinner party and they’d sleep,” she says. Not all babies will need that noise as they grow into toddlers-it seems to depend on the child’s temperament, says Wendy Hall, a sleep specialist and professor emerita in UBC’s School of Nursing. One small study published in the BMJ (formerly known as the British Medical Journal) found that newborns who fall asleep in rooms with white noise are more likely to fall asleep within five minutes and that they sleep longer stretches while it’s on. “The infant has spent those many months in the womb, and they would have heard a sort of shushing, swishing sound inside,” says Robyn Stremler, a nurse, sleep researcher and associate professor at the University of Toronto. The benefits of white noiseĪlthough it’s counterintuitive, most newborns sleep better with noise in the background than they do in silence. So who’s right? Here’s what you need to know. I’m now considering upgrading to a machine that includes what’s called pink noise after learning that studies suggest this more natural sound range might help kids sleep better.Īt the same time, other parents-and my in-laws-swear that their kids became good sleepers because the family never restricted noise around them and the babies learned to sleep through anything. Ever since we sleep-trained our first baby, I’ve been a white noise advocate-even packing our white noise machines for both kids when we fly across the country to visit family, and making an emergency last-minute run to Walmart to replace one that broke on the trip.
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