This popular sleep training technique could do more harm than good

Many parents use white noise to help get their babies to sleep – but is it good for them? Photo / 123rf
Playing white noise is a popular technique for getting your baby to fall asleep, but sleep experts want parents to know it could be harming their children’s development.
White noise, which sounds like static from the TV or radio, and its variants pink and brown noise – often thought to be more soothing kinds of background noise – help tune out disruptive sounds.
A survey by The Sleep Doctor found that 37% of parents surveyed said their babies needed some kind of ambient sound to go to sleep, while 45% said white noise was their preferred type, reports the Daily Mail.
But now sleep experts, including Dr April Benasich of Rutgers University and director of its Infancy Studies Laboratory, have warned that white noise could harm children’s language development and might even create a “public health issue”.
Benasich told the Daily Mail that this type of background noise can interrupt the development of a child’s language skills, which starts before birth. The monotony of white noise can disrupt their “acoustic mapping”, a network in the brain that helps children’s language learning.
Infants’ brains are interpreting every noise they hear to create networks of language, paying attention to repeated sounds – and can tell the difference between sounds occurring in a tenth of a millisecond.
“Young infants can hear the differences between every single sound in the world … sounds that are teeny tiny changes,” Benasich explains.
It’s important that babies hear these sound variations while they’re asleep, as that is when the brain does most of its work creating the ability to adapt, she adds
White noise doesn’t have this variation, so if parents play white noise to a baby, who sleeps 12 to 18 hours each day, it’s “telling the brain you don’t need to listen to this because there’s nothing going on,” the sleep expert says.
She was surprised to see parents on social media touting the benefits of white noise. “What are people doing to their kids? I think it’s going to be a public health issue.”
Instead of using white noise, experts recommend using soundscapes that include variation, such as a heartbeat or the sound of ocean waves.
“You want every child to be able to have the advantage of having everything they can to support them,” Benasich told the outlet.