5 Best Baby Sound Machines to Help Lull Your Little One to Sleep

With more than 30,000 five-star reviews on Amazon, the Hatch Rest is a recurring favorite among parents, which explains why it won the Best Sleep Machine during the 2023 What to Expect Sleep Awards. This high-tech device is known for being incredibly customizable to best suit you and your baby. In fact, you can create custom sound-and-light combinations and save baby’s favorite for later. 

“The ability to save sounds can be helpful for parents who want to create a different environment for night sleep versus napping,” says Leah Rocketto, Associate Commerce Director at What to Expect, who finds the feature to be easy and intuitive to use.

Sarah Darby, What to Expect's Senior SEO Strategist, also found creating custom combinations to be super useful, especially because it’s easy to accidentally cycle through all of the sounds when turning the machine on and off. 

As far as sounds go, there are tons of options, including white noise, heartbeat and lullabies. As baby gets older, you can play bedtime stories on the Hatch Rest. You can also program specific colors to signal to your toddler that it’s time for bed, time to wake up or time for a nap. 

The best part? Everything can be controlled through an app on your phone.

“The app is especially helpful if my mom or someone else is with the baby and struggling to turn it on,” says Leah. “I can just do it from my phone and all is well.”

Parents also love the look of the Hatch Rest so much that many buy them for other rooms in their home.

The Dohm is described as a staple in many parents’ homes for so many reasons. Instead of digitally recreating sound, it actually has a fan built in inside to produce white noise that many parents say sounds natural and unobtrusive. Plus, it can impressively drown out almost all outside noises — whether it’s coming from the street or other areas of your home — which may be one of the reasons many parents love it in their own rooms, too. 

“The fact that it uses a fan and not a low-quality recording played through a low-quality speaker makes a difference I think,” says Jamison Hermann, Senior Video Producer, who has two in his home.

Its straightforward design allows you to adjust the tone and volume by twisting the top and sides. Each opens or closes vents so you can modify the level depending on what helps baby sleep. Many parents in the What to Expect community say it has even lasted them for several years. One thing to note, however, is that it doesn’t have a timer, so you’ll have to manually turn it off if you don’t want it to play all night. It also doesn’t have a light. 

The Munchkin projector and sound machine has ambient sounds, lullabies and pretty projected images to help lull baby to sleep. It comes with three sets of images: Soothing Seas, Calming Rainforest and Sleepy Sky. What to Expect parents appreciate that it comes with a timer so the projections won’t be on all night, as well as a built-in nightlight for late night feedings or comforting baby. Parents also like the options of sound, ranging from lullabies to ocean noise to Mozart.

This compact device can help drown out background noise wherever you are. There’s even a convenient clip so you can easily attach it to your stroller or diaper bag. It runs on three AAA batteries, and although many parents say that it has a surprisingly long battery life, you’ll want to keep extras in your bag just in case. One reviewer says they used it 24/7 for over a week for a new puppy and it still had plenty of power left. Just remember: Never attach this device (or any other) to your baby’s crib. Not only would that make the sound levels unsafe, but attaching anything to a crib is a hazard, per the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). 

Did you know your Echo speaker can also double as baby's sound machine? Download free white noise sounds off Amazon (such as Sleep Sounds: White Noise), then simply tell Alexa to play the sound. As your kiddo gets older, you can have the device play audiobooks or stream music to help lull him to sleep. 

The latest version of the device boasts a spherical shape, nursery-friendly color options like white or deep sea blue, an improved audio experience and a new temperature sensor.