Is it worth buying a white noise machine to help your baby sleep?

I’ve been very lucky that my Mini Moo is such a good sleeper. She was sleeping through the night by the time she was two months old, and not waking until about 6 or 6.30am; by six months she wasn’t waking for her first feed until about 7.30 and then going back to sleep for an hour or even two, meaning I was getting plenty of sleep and even having time to get up and shower and express milk in the mornings while she was asleep.

You probably hate me now, don’t you? Babies’ sleep patterns seem to vary massively and I do count my blessings that I’ve had it easy on the sleep front – the Mini Moo has always been good at having naps in the day time as well. But even a baby that sleeps well at one point might have a period of disrupted sleep for a while, or vice versa.

I kept hearing about ‘the dreaded four month sleep regression’ and was expecting baby S to start waking in the night again but that never happened. But more recently now she is eight months, her sleep pattern has been more unpredictable. It might be that she is going through a sleep regression, or a growth spurt (or ‘leap’ if you subscribe to that theory), or because she has been teething and under the weather with a cold.

Whatever the reason, some nights lately we haven’t been able to get baby S to go to sleep until 10 or 11pm, and then sometimes she does sleep through the night until 8am or later, but other nights she has woken at 3.30 or 4.30 or 5.45, crying and wanting a feed. My main concern though is getting her to sleep in the first place – it won’t be long before baby S starts nursery (eek!) and will need to be up early in the morning, which will mean she will need to go to bed a lot earlier.

It was perfect timing then that I was sent the AuCuTee intelligent infant mood soothing machine to review. I’d heard of people playing white noise to their babies to get them to sleep, often using an app on their phone, but you can’t leave your mobile next to your baby’s cot all night! We have a couple of nightlights that play music or emit white noise as well but I’ve used them more to entertain the baby (as the light is beamed in a star pattern) than to actually help her to sleep.

The AuCuTee is more than just a white noise machine as it has six different settings:

• a nice melody
• a ‘sssh’ sound which I make to the Mini Moo sometimes but it sounds a little odd coming out of a machine, it is a good idea and may work though
• A heart beat sound like the one you hear when you are having an ante natal scan, which I have heard is very soothing for the baby
• rain sound
• white noise which I know some people swear by
• ocean waves which I found very relaxing myself!

The volume control is an adjustable dial which I prefer to the nightlights I have where there are two volume settings, soft or loud; with the AuCuTee you can have the level you want.The really clever thing about the product though is the voice sensor, which is sound activated when the baby cries and it automatically plays sounds to help them go back to sleep. It also has a 30 minute standby mode so if you want to turn it on as baby is drifting off to sleep, it will turn itself off after half an hour.

I’ve been using it for a little while now and since we started, baby S either hasn’t woken in the night or if she has, she has gone back to sleep before I even heard anything through the baby monitor. It’s hard to know if the AuCuTee is what’s helped as there are all sorts of factors that could be involved but I would like to think that it has made a difference. It hasn’t helped us get the Mini Moo down to bed in the first place as she still prefers to fall asleep in her chair in the living room with us, so we do need to start trying to get a better bedtime routine!

The AuCuTee is a nice compact size and has a built-in rechargeable battery so is a handy size to put in your overnight bag if you are going to be away from home with baby, though it would be nice if it came in other colours (it’s white with an orange top); it was very quick and easy to set up, as there is nothing to do apart from plug in the usb cable and switch it on.

At £23.99 currently on Amazon I think it’s reasonably priced. Its rounded shape means no edges for baby to chew and you turn the base to change the setting which means there are no buttons baby can press – personally I wouldn’t leave any sort of gadget actually in the baby’s cot overnight but you can have it close by without needing to worry. It also comes with a hook attached so you can hang it somewhere and even clip it to the buggy for when you are out and about and you want baby to nap.

It’s difficult to know whether a white noise machine or something that makes soothing sounds will definitely work but we seem to have had positive results from the AuCuTee and if you are having problems getting your baby to sleep I would say it’s worth a try!

Thanks to AuCuTee for sending the product to review – all opinions are my own.