Long time no blog! ...or facebook for that matter. Life has been busy as usual but I've just been crashing at night.
Speaking of sleep... there has been recent news regarding the use of sound machines and whether it is harmful to baby’s hearing. The theory is that the noise level may be too loud for infants because they are more sensitive to sound due to their smaller ear canals. So there is potential harm to the child's hearing if there is prolonged exposure.
Now, we have a sound machine in each of our kids’ rooms and even bring it with us when we travel! We’ve found that sound machines do help with the quality of our kids’ sleep and sleep is highly treasured in this household. So what to do with this new information?
I like Dr Karp's response to this recent news. To boil it all down, these are the take away points I came away with:
- Make sure sound machine is not too close to baby’s ears… as far away as possible
- Make sure the volume is not cranked up.. maybe make it as soft as possible
- Use the machine for as short duration as possible... some say turn off after kid is asleep
Bottom line... use with caution and if not really noticing a significant difference in kids’ sleep, may be time to put it away.
