White Noise Machine?

I agree with Brenda's post. We love the Homedics sound machine and use the "waterfall" setting. We have one for each child, and a machine at the grandparent's house. Yes, they can sleep without it, but it is very helpful in a noisy house.

When I was looking for something good and small, I went online to a site called whitenoise.com and found a great machine called the Sound Stream. It blocks out most everything. The only negative to white noise is that once you're really used to it, it becomes a challenge to fall sleep without it. You might want to consider that with a child.
Best of luck!

I don't have a product to recommend, but perhaps another solution? Do you bake? Brownies or cupcakes or something sweet? So, here's my advice:
With sweet baked good in hand, knock on the offending neighbors door and give a brilliant smile. Introduce yourself and give your child's name. Say, "I'm not here to borrow a cup of sugar. In fact, I believe there's more than a cup of sugar in these and they are for you. We do, however, have to ask a huge favor. These old apartment buildings don't have the sound dampening that one would hope for. Normally, this isn't a problem, but my child has gotten into that phase where naps are easily disturbed but oh, so important to her development and general attitude for the rest of the day. If I keep her to a specific nap schedule, do you think you could try to help keep the noise down just so she can get a good nap? I would be most appreciative."

Worth a shot? Key points: 1. Offer something. In this example, the baked good. 2. Start out lighthearted, with a joke and a smile. 3. Blame the building, not the neighbor. 4. Lable the favor as for you and your child. People have a harder time turning down a kid. 5. Specify that this is for a scheduled daily time, not an rebuke to keep the noise down all the time. 5. Be gracious and say please and thank you. Hard to remember when it feels we're going out of our way to do something we shouldn't have to, but it works. Good luck.

I have used them for both of my boys and I couldn't live without them. A bomb could go off in my house and neither one of them would flinch. I use the Homedics one and it works great. You can get them at Walgreens, Target, etc and they're $25.

Good luck!

Have you talked with your landlord about the noisey neighbor?

Well my in my opinion he will get used to it or learn not to have a nap that long. He will conform. Me personally i don't like white noise. Children learn to depend on it. Making it where when it's not there they don't sleep well. So it makes it hard in other situations like when you visit family or motels. So i don't recommend it personally. I have seen alot of people have children use white noise for naps or bedtime and than when they get in other situations like going on trips or visiting family and even sometimes at home when people visit or horrible cases even reg. bedtime have trouble getting there kids not only to sleep but get good sleep because the source of white noise isn't available. So don't suggest it. I suggest letting things go for a while and let him conform. He will if he really needs the sleep he will get it. It will take a while until he does but he will. Also it could also be that bed time is too late. Most children until they are about 7 or 8 yrs old go to bed at 7:30 pm and wake up at about 6 am. good luck

I got my white noise machine at Brookstone. It was expensive ($60 if think) but totally worth every penny. Lots of settings, a great volume range, and it totally blocks out the sound of our infant when he wakes at night (our rooms are right next to each other.) Good luck!

http://www.target.com/Ocean-Wonders-Aquarium-Remote-Contr...

There is an older version of this which I picked up for $11 from a consignment shop. It has music, lights, water noise, etc. in one. You can use different modes for lights and noise or just noise/no lights. It has a huge button for turning on - my son figured it out @ 3 months old. He has always been a bad sleeper and this has been a real life saver. We hear him turn it on during the night when he wakes up! Also, the dryer being on (don't know if you have your own in the apt. or not) and (as someone else said) tuning the radio to static and turning it down low. If you can have a ceiling fan installed, that's also a lot of help and greatly reduces the risk of SIDS as well! Good luck - you have my sympathy!

T.,
I have always used a sound machine with both of my children. My son, who is now 12, loves to run a ceiling fan at night. My daughter, who is 4, still uses the sound machine...with the white noise. What I love about it...the dog can even bark and she doesn't wake up. I send it with her to preschool and they even use it for all the kids at nap time! Works like a charm. It even helps me sleep (I can hear it through the baby monitor). When my daughter wakes up, she simply turns off the machine and that is my "wake up call" as well. Good luck :)

I love the Sleep Sound by Marpac. It's expensive, but awesome. Just a blank, white noise that runs continuously and honestly blocks out all other noise in our little house. We have a yippee dog and a noisy 4-year-old, and the baby can't hear any of it! ;0)

We live in an apartment/condo complex as well. Since the walls are so thin we put on the white noise when we want to stay up to watch a movie or my husband plays his Xbox games.

We use one of the "iHome" radio alarms with a iPod docking station. My daughter dozes off to either the river, rain or waterfall settings. We switch it up so that she doesn't get used to one sound and have it turn off after 15 minutes or so. It's nice to have something that will be able to be used after that purpose. When she wakes up, she enjoys dancing to her own playlist on the iPod too.

I live in a condo, so we are in the same boat. The floors are really thin! And on Garbage truck days, it wakes my 2 year old up very early in the morning. We have a bionairre air purifier, and turn it on during sleep times. I used to keep it running all the time when she was younger. There are different settings...low, medium and high. It's great white noise, and it purifies the room at the same time! There are lots of styles you can choose from and ranging from inexpensive to very expensive! We got ours at Target. And, when we visit her grandparents, she sleeps well without a fan running. It is super quiet at their house. So, she isn't dependent on the white noise yet, in fact she sometimes tells me "no fan".

T.-

I have used a white noise machine ($20 from Target) for several years with my 5 & 6 year old. It also has a timer that will allow it to turn off by itself at night. I found that the white noise really helped them fall asleep and when one woke from a nap the other could continue to sleep. The one I have has about 10 sounds and some of them are really annoying but if you find one that both you and he like that might help. My 5 year old daughter still likes to turn hers on when going to sleep at night! Good luck!

There are various white noise makers out there. The cheapest way to go is to tune a radio in between stations so you just get static. If you can record the sound of boiling water and play it in a loop, that works well, too.

These are some options:
- Bathroom fan on (keep baby in infant seat or bassinet close by) - this is how my babies learned to sleep through the night.
- Clothes Dryer
- Oscillating fan on in the room
- Fan/vent on over the stove
- TV on (sporting events turned down low for some reason makes you want to sleep!)
And keep the room nice and dark!

Good luck!

We have a DexBaby that we got at Babies R Us. It has been very helpful in drowning out the background noise. You can choose different sounds. We typically put it on the ocean sounds.

You could try an old radio turned to static and turned up loud, a free way to try the concept. You could hide it in the closet or something so he won't play with it.

Also if you do get a machine you can time it to turn ON at a certain time so they don't need it to fall asleep but it blocks out noises later so they don't wake as early. Friends of mine tried this with the morning (loud birds in the yard in the early am) and it worked well and the baby didn't become dependent at night.

I love the Dex one from Babies R Us:
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2401840

My daughter is a VERY light sleeper so we purchased a white noise machine right before my son was born. We got a Homedics from Bed Bath and Beyond for around $20 (actually less when you use one of those 20% off coupons, which they take, even expired). It has six sound choices and we've found "waterfall" or "rain" work best. It plugs in but has a battery option, which we've used a couple of times when we've lost power. The only thing I can say is, after turning it on and off so many times, we've had the power/volume knob go bad on us (which my stepdad could fix because he's good at it). If you get the same one, I would try to hook it up somehow to a switched outlet or get one of those switches that plug directly into the wall and use that switch to turn it on and off. Otherwise, it's been terrific for us! (Here's a link that should take you there to look at it if you'd like--copy and paste: http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/product.asp?order_num=-1&...)

B.

My son has slept with a noise machine since he was an infant...once he started taking naps in his bed. Ours is a Homedics - there are 6 different sounds. We leave it on the "Waterfall" - just a static sound, and with it turned up as loud as it can go, he never hears the phone or door bell ring, the dogs barking, etc. I think I paid less that $20 for it at Target over a year ago, and it's still working great. The ONLY thing I don't loke about it is that the default noise is nature or something...birds chirping, etc. If the power goes out, this is what comes on when you get power back. It's never seemed to wake him, but it drives me crazy and definitely wakes me up if the power off didn't! =)
We take ours everywhere with us - traveling in hotels as well as other people's houses. He never sleeps as well away from home, of course, but this constant definitely helps drown out the different noises.
Hope this helps!
~K.