The man who invented the
electric blender should be hailed as a
saint. The reason? The motor on a cheap blender is
loud enough (and hopefully
sturdy enough) to instantly quiet any
baby I've ever seen, and quite often
lull them from a
red-faced panic into sleep.
I'm running a blender at this very moment to quiet Ian, two months old with
colic, who was up until five minutes ago
screaming and
crying because his mom had left and because his
belly hurt. His
pacifier just drooped out of his mouth, and he is dead
asleep. Seriously, somebody could be doing
dental work on this kid. Although I wouldn't recommend shutting off the
blender until you're sure.
The only
problem is that blenders aren't really
designed to run 20-30 minutes at a time. While running one for 30 seconds and then stopping it will generally quiet the baby down momentarily, he or she will often get fussy soon after it is shut off. However,
cheap blenders are often as low as $15, and often much much less at
garage sales and the like. It doesn't have to be a $300
Bass-o-matic 5000 to quiet the kid down, and since
noise is a plus it generally helps if it isn't.
As a side note,
vacuums and
white noise makers often work as well, but there's something about the
tone and
level of a
blender that seems to work better for me.