How Much White Noise is too Much in a Small Space?

Photo Credit: Blue Window Creative

We have been evaluating every bit of our apartment in preparation for Baby Mazurek #2. RIght now everything seems to be coming back to sleep and something in our apartment that has always gotten in the way of sleep is our dishwasher.  There is nothing wrong with our dishwasher (pictured above) and in a normal apartment with 2 people who sleep in the bedroom it would be fine.  But I sleep one foot from our dishwasher!  Our dishwasher is not quiet... and when we turn it on at night I can't fall asleep until it is done.  We also have to think about Theo's naps and sleep when starting the dishwasher.  We have found if we put it on before he falls asleep he can sleep through the noise but it is too risky to turn it on shortly after he has fallen asleep.

This minor inconvenience of a loud dishwasher has been something we have been willing to live with. But with the reality of 2 nap schedules and 2 bedtimes in a small space fast approaching, we did not want to deal with timing the dishwasher loads as well.  And I know that sleep for us will be even more precious and I can't spare that hour wash cycle.  This is not to say I am not a big supporter of having white noise while babies sleep and plan to write more on this later.  But our dishwasher pushes the limits on white noise.... indoor hurricane is the closest comparison I can come up with.

After lots of research and learning more than I probably need to know about dishwashers we have ordered a Bosch dishwasher that is only 46 decibels. So I get that dishwashers are not the most interesting or beautiful detail of an apartment but I thought it was worth sharing the little ( or big) changes that make living in our small space possible.