Sleep Sounds

Many children (and adults) benefit from regular and lulling sounds played while they sleep. Ocean waves are popular as are gentle rain and thunderstorms. I used to listen to a recording of peepers. Having a particular soundtrack that is played only at night can be a comforting part of the bedtime ritual and can serve as a gentle signal that it's time to sleep.

I turn one on when we start getting into our jammies and it plays as I read him his bedtime stories. When he took naps it went on as he settled in for his one naptime book.

Unlike most kids, though, he has absolutely no interest in waves or other Nature sounds. Nope. He's a Trainboy and he only listens to trains. So we headed for YouTube and found one that we can all sleep with. Because, being a Trainboy, he insists on having the thing at full volume. Trains are not shy or quiet, apparently. Not even at night.

I found that there are two kinds of train soundtracks. One is the clickity-clack of being on the train and the other is the sound of horns and whistles, hopefully in the distance.

I'm not a fan of the clickity-clack. Most of them are too fast and frenetic for me. However I did find this one and this one. These were calm and regular enough that they didn't set my teeth on edge.

I do like the trains calling in the distance, though. It reminds me of the trains that ran a couple of miles from where I grew up. There are quite a few of these soundtracks out there. This one is nice and this is the one that we finally settled on.

I discovered during my search that not everybody has grasped the meaning of "in the distance" so if you decide to do your own search I'd recommend not using headphones to do it.

Please keep in mind that except for the one that we use, I have only sampled these, not listened to any of them all the way through. I know that I rejected some of them because I could hear human voices at a few points. I fervently hope that these contain nothing but what they say they do.