Dear LPG,

The focus of my words today are all the parents and grandparents and sometimes great-grandparents of those little cherubs at the other end of their life-journeys to ourselves.   I suppose, at 64, I have reached the average age for having a few grandchildren, but I find it quite irritating when the first word I hear when I visit is that of Mum or Dad telling me that I have to ‘shhhhhhh’ because the baby is asleep.

When I was the Mum of little ones I remember that one of my mother’s first nuggets of advice to me was that there should always be a little bit of noise left on while the children slept, and a small transistor radio did the trick in the 1970’s.  I found that, because the radio always provided background noise, I rarely needed to use the ‘Shhhhhhh’ phrase when someone visited.  In the days when the mother and baby groups, soft play groups, Mummy and me exercise classes, and play groups, were not so plentiful to tire them out, I could even hoover the room that my child slept in without disturbing her.

It was the way that I was brought up too and, to this day I sleep with a radio playing in the background and when that noise is missing, the click of a water pipe or a passing car outside the window is likely to disturb.

I cannot be alone in this because I have discovered that there are now ‘white noise’ baby sleep machines available, which offer the most diverse sounds.  When prompted I found that YouTube offers the sounds of thunder, vacuum cleaners, rain, washing machines, fans and even womb sounds to mention a few, and this idea was developed scientifically.  

I always thought the radio worked perfectly all those years ago but interestingly, these noise makers are being made and sold at great cost even though I would argue that there is always noise available anyway, but if you are looking to buy a present in preparation for the arrival of the latest member of your family, one of these machines could serve as something to make the bird-killing and stone analogy work for three degrees of happiness. 

The baby is more likely to sleep, the parents will have the freedom to talk and move around with more freedom during baby-nap time, and I won’t have to be greeted with the ‘Shhhhhhh’ word half as often…  and we haven’t even discussed the advantages when it comes to grandma babysitting time!

HG, Charlton

HG has found some information about white noise machines…

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…and also offers some examples of the sounds on offer….

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