Use a Fan at Bedtime

Placing a fan inside your baby’s room at bedtime has several benefits, both for your baby and for you. Not only will it help her to fall asleep more quickly and stay asleep a little longer, but it muffles the noise enough for you to have normal inside conversation in the net room without disturbing the baby. On top of that, using a fan has been shown to make baby’s sleep time safer.

Choose a small fan for baby’s room, and make sure to angle it in such a way that it isn’t blowing air directly onto your baby. The idea is to help the air in baby’s room circulate, not to have air blowing directly on the baby. Most parents find it best to place the fan parallel to baby’s crib.

You will also want to make sure that you choose a fan with holes small enough that baby’s fingers aren’t going to reach through. Babies are notoriously curious about such things, and you don’t want your baby sticking her fingers into the fan. Additionally, you should be sure to place the fan far enough from baby’s crib that she won’t be able to reach it in the first place.

Using a fan to circulate the air has been shown to help reduce the risk of SIDS. While there are no foolproof ways to make sure that a baby won’t die of SIDS, we believe that any little bit you can do to help prevent SIDS is a good idea.

Additionally, the white noise created by a running fan may actually remind baby of the sounds she heard while she was in your womb. The muffling effect a fan has on other sounds such as conversation can also help baby to sleep through ordinary noises.

Of course, no two babies are completely alike, and some babies will take to falling asleep with a fan better than others, especially if they had become accustomed to sleeping without one. Ultimately, you need to figure out what works best for your baby. If it includes a fan, great. If not, that’s OK, too.