Soothing Sounds

Baby Joaquin is a mellow baby. He seems to take after Daniel in most ways. But more about that later. He does a lot of sleeping. From what I hear, that's like finding out your in-laws own a place in the Caribbean. Funny thing is that he sleeps best when there is loud background noise. So we have taken to taking the baby out to parties, restaurants, breweries where we know the roar of the crowd will make him conk out.

At the Jupiter Pub last Tuesday, he slept like an angel. At Kate and Luka's Christmas party, he snoozed like a pro. At Friday's couples-with-baby dinner party, he was the picture of well-behaved napping in a bouncer chair as Daniel and I leisurely enjoyed our meal. Yet when we take him home between nursing and spells of complacent observation, he squawks. "Wah!" (translation "I am a baby and my stomach hurts!)"

We need some white noise at home. Daniel and I talked about a white noise machine. But reports from the public say those machines become additive for the whole family. We've heard dishwashers make baby lulling sounds. But how often can we run our dishwasher? We tried putting Daniel's Norelco electric shaver next to Joaquin. He calmed down but the shaver motor isn't designed to be on for hours at a time.
Daniel had the brilliant idea of a baby CD of Soothing Sounds.

Soothing Sounds for Babies
Track 1: Blender
Track 2: Washing Machine
Track 3: Vacuum
Track 4: Fan
Track 5: Car idling
Track 6: Radio Static

I think Daniel is on to something here. When we get some spare time, we'll head to a recording studio with a mess of motorized appliances. I predict it to be a hit, up there with "Happiest Baby on the Block" Dr. Karp's method of soothing crying babies (which we ordered off the internet at 11 p.m. last Wednesday.)