Need Help Getting Your Baby to Sleep? Try the Hidden White Noise Feature for Your iPhone

Children can be difficult at times. Sometimes they will eat before they take a nap, and other times they will be irritated by the suggestion of eating before bed and want to be rocked to dreamland. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, playing sounds from a white noise machine can help soothe and calm your baby, giving you a moment to relax. And if you have The iPhoneyou don’t need to spend money on a white noise machine.

When Apple released iOS 15 in 2021, the app introduced a hidden feature called Background Sounds. It allows you to turn your iPhone into a white noise machine, and 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 loop: rain, stream and ocean waves, which are natural sounds, and bright, balanced and dark sounds, which are different tones of white noise. When the tech giant released iOS 18 in 2024, it added two sounds: night and fire. Again iOS 26 brought more background sounds to the devices, including rain on the roof and chattering, which sounds like a busy cafe.

If you want to use these sounds to lull the baby to sleep, or for any other reason, here’s how to enable Background Sounds on your iPhone.

How to find Background Sounds in your control center

Instead of searching Settings every time you want to turn on Background Sounds, here’s how you can set a toggle in Control Center to turn on the feature for use on your iPhone.

1. Open it Control Center.
2. Tap the plus (+) sign in at the top left of your screen.
3. Tap Add a Controller near the bottom of your screen.
4. Tap Hearing control (ear icon) at the bottom Hearing accessibility to add to the Control Center.

Once the Hearing control icon is in Control Center, touch it to see three options: Speaker, Background Sounds and Listen Live. Then tap the musical notes nearby Background Sound to open the feature. You can also click on words Background Sound to open the menu to select a different background sound and to adjust the volume.

Use Accessibility Shortcuts for Background Sounds

You can also set an accessibility shortcut to turn Background Sounds on or off on your home screen or within an app. Here’s how to set it up.

1. Tap Settings.
2. Tap Accessibility.
3. Tap Access shortcut.
4. Tap Background Sound.

Now, if you press the side button on your iPhone three times, Background Sounds will turn on. You can tap the button again three times to turn it off again.

Lots of background sound options

If you want more control over Background Sounds, here’s where to go.

1. Tap Settings.
2. Tap Accessibility.
3. Tap Audio and visual.
4. Tap Background Sound.

Near the top of this menu you can turn on Background Sounds by tapping on Background Sound change, and you can change the Background Sound by tapping The sound and select a new sound.

There are two toggles in this menu: Use When Media is Playing again Stop Sounds When Locked. Tap to convert next Use When Media is Playing allows Background Sounds to continue playing while watching a video or listening to music. Then press the button next to it Stop Sounds When Locked ensures that Background Sounds will turn off when your device locks. If this is not enabled, sounds will continue to play when your device locks.

There are also two new menus in iOS 26: Timer and Stop Sounds with Timer. The Equalizer allows you to adjust the tone and contour of Background Sounds, as well as more balance on the right or left speaker or headphone. Stop Sounds with Timer allows you to turn off Background Sounds at a time of your choosing or after a certain amount of time has passed.

For more iOS news, here’s what you need to know iOS 26.5 again iOS 26.4. You can also check our iOS 26 cheat sheet.

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