GoKawiilA baby sleeps in the arms of a caregiver. Pekic/Getty Images
My wife and I have been working on sleep training our baby, and my iPhone has been very helpful in our pursuit thanks to its Background Sounds features. This feature transforms your iPhone into a white noise machine. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, playing sounds from a white noise machine can help soothe your baby and get them to settle down, giving you a moment of respite.
When Apple released iOS 15 in 2021, the operating system brought a hidden feature called Background Sounds. You can play these sounds by themselves or under a podcast, music or video streaming app.
When Apple introduced Background Sounds, there were six ambient sounds to play on a loop: rain, stream and ocean waves, which are natural sounds, and bright, balanced and dark noise, which are different pitches of white noise. But if you have iOS 26 on your device, you have over a dozen sounds to choose from now, including rain on roof and babble, which sounds like a busy cafe.
If you want to use these sounds to lull a baby back to sleep, or for any other reason, here’s how to enable Background Sounds on your iPhone.
How to access Background Sounds from your Control Center
Instead of searching through Settings each time you want to turn Background Sounds on, here’s how you can set up a toggle in the Control Center to turn the feature on to use on your iPhone.
1. Open Control Center.
2. Tap the plus (+) sign in the top left of your screen.
3. Tap Add a Control near the bottom of your screen.
... continue reading