Technically speaking, white noise is a sound made of every sound frequency -- from the highest to the lowest -- that the human ear can hear, sounding all at once.

Common white noise often sounds very high, with few low tones.  This is because the human ear can hear far more high frequencies than low.

White noise is often referred to as ‘static’, and the most common example is the ‘shhhh’ sound present when there’s no signal on your TV or radio -- or when trying to soothe your little one.    

There has been a lot of talk in parenting magazines and books, blogs and websites, about the wonders of white noise and how it can help your baby sleep.   So what's the big deal?  

Pure white noise, itself, is fatiguing and not very agreeable.  (More on this later.) But white noise can be anything but 'noise'.  It is very soothing for people of all ages. In fact, therapists have used white-noise machines in their waiting rooms and offices for years. And smart parents know it does wonders to help soothe a crying baby, and to help a baby go to sleep.

Why do babies respond so well to white noise? The prevailing theory these days has to do with something called the fourth trimester. Of course pregnancy is measured in three trimesters. Baby and Mommy experts today think we've shortchanged both groups by ignoring how special the first few months following birth really are. Baby and Mommy each go through numerous physical, mental and emotional changes during this crucial time. It's a lot for a new little person to deal with! Soothing white noise can help baby through getting used to being in his own separate body, by providing an atmosphere similar to the one inside of mom. Just imagine how many sounds were in there!

Like we mentioned, pure white noise can actually be both fatiguing and -- well, annoying. At Blissful Baby we sought to create something better: a more peaceful and soothing solution to helping your baby sleep. And a well-rested baby is a happy baby.

We parents realize the importance of balancing baby's need for routine with her need for variety. This, plus our own experience helping our baby learn to put himself to sleep, makes Blissful Baby Sounds great. Our white-noise sounds cycle through variations to help soothe baby more than a constant, harsh sound.  It's the difference between listening to the ocean, versus listening to the static of a broken radio.
 
Our natural sounding white-noise Sleep Soothers are just that.  We’ve taken the soothing effects of white noise and discarded the rest.  These soothing sounds undulate and sway in the same way that many calming sounds do in nature. Our sounds are mixed with the most gentle, soothing environments, such as waterfalls, wind, rain, the ocean, and sounds of the womb.  Just as you would test the temperature of your baby’s bottle, we invite you to test the sounds that your child listens to as well.  We think you’ll find these sounds to be well worthy of your baby’s ears. 

Want the techie explanation? Our award winning sound designer has achieved the best possible synthesized white noise. He's changed the properties of white noise to focus in on the sounds that really lull a baby to sleep.  Blissful Baby Sounds combine white noise sounds, various recording environments, and the highest quality professional sound engineering, to create a soothing effect that slowly changes over time.  And because our sounds are digitally synthesized, we can ensure that no extraneous noise degrades the sound.

And as if all that weren't enough, Blissful Baby Sounds are white noise on a mission. Blissful Baby Sounds believes we each have a responsibility to help make our world a better place. That's why 10% of our profits are donated to charity. This year, we're giving to Room to Grow to help enrich the lives of babies born into poverty. When you purchase Blissful Baby Sounds, you're doing a wonderful thing for yourself and your baby, and for babies and their families throughout Boston and New York.

Sit and try to shush really loudly for 30 minutes straight. Or just 10. Now after you pick yourself up off the floor and figure out how much time has passed since you passed out, you can come back to www.shop.BlissfulBabySounds.com and download yourself some white noise.
 
The same goes for the other old favorites. How much time do you really want to spend standing there holding your baby and your running hairdryer, or bouncing your baby in front of the washing machine or dishwasher, or driving around in circles? And if you’re goal is to help baby sleep longer, running back into the nursery to shush every time baby wakes will really not solve anything. You’ve got eight million chores to do, and you need to sleep too. So let Blissful Baby Sounds and your mp3 player take some of that load off of your shoulders.

Fussy baby.
At the end of the day … Newborns (0-3 months) tend to just have had it by a certain point in the day. For many babies, this point comes in the evening (just as Dad is coming home, and Mom is at her wits end trying to straighten up, make dinner, and maybe even put some clothes on). At some point in the evening, your little one, in that 0-3 month or fourth trimester phase, will hit his limit of new experiences, sounds, tastes, and this big wide world outside of mommy’s womb. Crying and screaming will ensue, and it might seem that absolutely nothing helps. This was when the original Blissful Baby Sound was such a life-saver for us. That sound on a loop, plus just the right rocking or swaying, was all that could comfort our little one. Any white noise will help give your infant that sense of security she had for nine(ten) months inside mother’s womb, and that she so dearly misses. Of course all babies have fussy moments, days, or weeks. And for some babies, colic can last for several weeks or several months. White noise can be immensely helpful for these babies as well. The key is to find the sound that works for your baby. Good thing Blissful Baby Sounds offers a host of different soothing white noise sounds to choose from!

Going to bed.
Some babies have trouble winding down at the end of the day, or for naptime. Some babies don’t want to leave the security and warmth of Mommy and Daddy, to sleep on their own in their cribs or bassinets. White noise can help any baby through a peaceful transition to sleep. Make white noise part of an overall bedtime routine, and follow that routine consistently.
 
Staying asleep.
Naptime or nighttime, baby needs to get enough sleep. Every baby needs to get the right number of hours of sleep in a 24-hour period, and good quality sleep. There are general guidelines for how many hours of sleep babies need in each phase. It is up to parents to figure out what works for their baby. Once you figure that out, you might still need some help.

• Is baby waking up after just a short nap? Perhaps 30 minutes or an hour, when you know he needs more?
• Does baby wake multiple times during the night? Or the same time every night, even though you know she’s been fed enough, is dressed warmly enough, and isn’t sick?
• Does baby wake up to every little noise he hears? Maybe sound carries too easily through your house, or you’ve got noisy neighbors?

White noise can help in all of these instances. We stopped needing to use white noise when our baby was around 5 months old, only to come back to it around 11 months because baby started waking so easily to any sound in the house during naps, and waking at 3am every morning.

• Play on a continuous loop throughout the night, or the nap.
• Incorporate into your going-to-bed ritual, and leave it playing after baby is in bed.
• Play as baby is going to sleep, and for an hour or so after baby is asleep.
• Experiment with the volume. For us, sometimes it had to be pretty loud for baby to notice it over the sound of his own crying.
• Play when baby is crying.
• Not sure how to play mp3s for your baby? There are a number of products out there that could be of use. You might like an mp3 player meant to attach to a crib, or a portable radio made to use an mp3 player (like one of the ihome systems, kept out of baby’s reach of course).

Use common sense good judgment. 

• Don't put headphones or earbud headphones on a baby.
• Don't place speakers where baby can reach them or their wires.
• Don't play any sound or music at dangerously high volume

As with any facet of being a parent, a bit of common sense goes a long way here. Use your best judgment concerning volume level and speaker placement. Decide for yourself if you’d rather have white noise playing continuously throughout your baby’s nap or nighttime sleep, or just enough to lull baby off to sleep. Volume is often a parent’s major concern, as a baby’s cries are remarkably loud. When our baby was an infant, we started the white noise out loud enough for him to hear over his own cries, and then slowly decreased the volume as he calmed down. This might work for you, it might not.