Distance does more than the fader
Sound pressure falls with distance, quickly. A speaker two metres from a cot is meaningfully quieter than one at fifty centimetres, and moving the phone is a bigger change than any adjustment on this page.
Put the device across the room, at cot height or above, pointing away from the child. Then set the level. Doing it in the other order is how people end up with a loud speaker turned down slightly.
The mistake: leaving it on a phone by the cot
The common setup is a phone propped against the cot bars, because that is where the person holding it happens to be. That puts a small, bright speaker within arm's reach of an ear that has no way of moving, and small speakers are brightest exactly where white noise has most of its energy.
Second mistake, quieter but real: the sound never stops. If it runs every nap and every night for a year, a silent room becomes an unfamiliar one. That is not dangerous, but it is a thing you will have to undo later.
What the level here is for
Forty per cent is five points below the adult sleep preset and ten below the sleep presets built around recordings. It assumes a speaker across a room, not headphones and not a bedside phone.
The point of a nursery sound is to soften a door, a television, an older sibling. It is not to be audible over crying, and turning it up until it is competes with the one signal you actually need to hear.
What the generator produces
Rendered on 2026-09-04 from the browser's own per-sample algorithm, 30 seconds at 48 kHz, measured with the EBU R128 meter and an averaged 8192-point FFT.
| Layer | Preset level | Loop | Loudness | RMS | Centre | Low / mid / high |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| White Noise | 40% | generated, no loop | -11.5 LUFS | -14.7 dBFS | 12026 Hz | 1% / 15.6% / 83.4% |
- What this preset cannot do: These figures describe the signal, not the sound pressure in a room. No web page can tell you how loud a speaker is at a cot — that depends on the device, the volume of the operating system, and the distance. If you want a number, a sound level meter app is a rough guide and an actual meter is better.
Play white noise for a baby
- Put the device across the room, well away from the cot, before anything else.
- Open this page: the preset is already applied at white noise 40%, timer all night.
- Press play and stand at the cot to judge the level from there, not from where the phone is.
- Lower it until it is clearly quieter than a normal speaking voice.
Frequently asked questions
How loud should white noise be for a baby?
Clearly quieter than a speaking voice, judged from the cot rather than from the speaker. Distance matters more than the fader: move the device across the room first, then set the level. This preset starts at 40%, the lowest on the site.
Where should the speaker go?
As far from the cot as the room allows, at or above cot height, pointing away. A phone propped on the cot bars is the setup to avoid.
Can white noise play all night for a baby?
The timer here is set to all night, at a low level. Whether to use it that way is a decision for you and your health visitor or paediatrician — this page is a player, not medical advice.
Will my baby become dependent on it?
Rooms with sound every night become the normal room. That is a habit rather than a harm, but it is easier to loosen early than late.
Is pink noise better than white for a nursery?
It is less bright — 53% of pink noise's power is below 250 Hz against white noise's 1%. Some people find it easier to keep quiet. Either works; the level and the distance matter more than the colour.