I work in a place that has on-site daycare for its employees, and I occasionally have to go fix a computer or iPad in a room with sleeping babies and toddlers. The teachers in those classrooms are usually playing white noise to keep the kids asleep.

What those teachers taught me is that you don’t need a dedicated white noise machine. You likely already have at least one way to play white noise.

Did you know your phone can play white noise?

If you have an iPhone, open Settings, then open Accessibility. Scroll down to Audio & Visual and then open Background Sounds.

On the Background Sounds page, you can choose from eight different sounds, including bright noise, dark noise, ocean, rain, stream, night and fire.

You can play the noise even when the phone is locked, so you can put your phone on the charger and still get a good night’s sleep.

I’m an Apple Music subscriber, and if you ask Siri to play ambient sound or white noise and you’ll be dropped into a random playlist.

The advantage of using the Accessibility option is the sound will continue uninterrupted until you turn it off.

Android users can ask the Google Assistant (Hey Google) to play ambient sounds.

If you just ask Google for ambient sound, you’ll get a random sound.

If you’d like to choose, you can specify by asking for:

--Relaxing sounds

--Nature sounds

--Water sounds

--Running water sounds

--Babbling brook sounds

--Oscillating fan sounds

--Fireplace sounds

--Forest sounds

--Country night sounds

--Ocean sounds

--Rain sounds

--River sounds

--Thunderstorm sounds

--White noise

The Google Assistant method is also available if you have a Google Nest speaker.

If you have an Amazon Alexa device, you can also ask Alexa to play white noise.

There are also third-party apps for your phone or tablet that specialize in providing white noise. These can offer customizations like adding ocean wave sounds to a nighttime in the forest sound.

Most apps are free to try or have free options, but cost money to unlock all the features.

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