Noisy womb vs Noisy room
I always found it amazing when I hear mums say that they would start vacuuming as soon as they put baby to bed so that the newborn would get used to sleeping through noise. Why do I find this so amazing? After all, we've all heard it before. Housework is never my first choice of things to do when I get a moment to myself. I think if anyone in my household, including my husband, heard me turning on the vacuum cleaner it would start a crisis alert. He would assume I had somehow tragically fallen on it and accidentally turned it on. The only thing I ever thought about while baby was asleep during the day in those first three months was how tired I was and tried my best to imitate a couch potato.
I remember seeing a Dr Phil show (hey, don't tell me you didn't watch day time television when you were at home with a newborn) and he proudly claimed that he would have the radio blaring when he had his baby boys. He said that in the womb the baby's noisy environment is around 90 decibels. Not far off from a jack-hammer. Interesting I thought. Interesting that his wife just went through labour and possibly may have wanted a little time to heal and rest and her bloody husband is playing some Texan rock at full-ball just as baby was put to bed. This still didn't deter me from watching his show. In fact, I may have even turned the volume up from mute to 1.
We know ourselves how tough it is to focus in a loud room. Why else do we lower the volume on the car radio when we are trying to look for a street address? A new study suggests a noisy environment may even interfere with language development of a child. I interperet this to mean that their language will develop into shouting. Coming from an Italian household like myself, I can confirm this personally. However, in the first 6 months, and up to a year, babies have trouble differentiating between foreground sounds (like your saying her name) and background noise (radios, kids playing, adults talking).
So there you have it, if you were looking for an intellectual excuse, or any excuse, to avoid doing the housework, take it from me you are being a very good mummy by getting some peace and quiet for yourself when your newborn is asleep.