Re: Keeping Hearing Aids in Babies

June 26, 2006

I am hoping this phase doesn't last long either. Even

with all the other toys he has in his lap, he still

picks his hearing aids....

Marni

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June 26, 2006

Not sure if this is harmful to the aids or not, but what about putting some of

that yucky stuff that they put on kids fingers? Or you can try an ear gear. We

use those with Ian and they work wonderfully. www.gearforears.com

Tawnya

Re: Keeping Hearing Aids in Babies

I am hoping this phase doesn't last long either. Even

with all the other toys he has in his lap, he still

picks his hearing aids....

Marni

__________________________________________________

June 26, 2006

Hello. My son and daughter got their aids at 3 months and 5 months,

respectively. To keep things short, we have lost a number of aids along the way

and still have times when they just dont want them in. For instance, they are 2

and 3 1/2 years old now, and although they pretty much keep their aids in, they

toss them if them see headphones or sunglasses, so you have to anticipate when

they will take them out.

All I can say is - pick your battles. Despite what the " professionals " tell

you, it is impossible to keep children this young aided at all times. You, as a

mother, have to deal with the reality of the situation. For me, it was

impossible to keep an eye on her every waking moment and the aids cost too much

to be destroyed or lost. To get things started, I bought a light weight cap

that tied under their chin and put that on with the aids when I could keep them

distracted by playing, singing, whatever. At first it was 5 minutes at a time,

but we just worked on increasing the time and not using the hat.

I agree with not using them in the car seat - they simply have too much idle

time on their hands and it is too stressful when you are driving to try and see

what they are doing.

Believe me - it will get easier. My 3 1/2 yr. old actually asks to have her

" ears " on. But, keep in mind she still is ready to ditch them when we turn the

DVD system on in the van and offer her the earphones. When this happens, we

dont fight her, we just let her use the earphones during the ride and put her

aids back in before she gets out the van - that way everyone feels like they

have won the battle.

All I can say is do what you can and dont sweat the small stuff. For

instance, start out by having your child sit in their highchair and keeping the

aids in for 5-10 intervals and build from that. Play games with them,

especially games with music and noise. Get them to appreciate their aids. If

they take them out, dont scold them too bad, just say no and put them back in

and get back to playing. If it becomes too much of a struggle - let it go and

try later.

I hope my experience helps. Take care, Sharlene

My son is 6 months old and ALWAYS eats his aids! We just take them

out when he is in his carseat and we can't reach him. Otherwise we

say no, take them back and put them back in. My mom made a little

sweatband with elactic hooks to go over the hearing aids. It makes

it easier to keep them on his head, but he can pull them out when he

wants to chew on something.

We got his hearing aids when he was 9 weeks and I hated them -- he

could not hold his head up well and the were always screaching and

falling out! He grew fast and I can barely remember those days

already. I am hoping the eating phase we be over soon too. . .

I really hope

> > I am doing this right I am new at this. My name is

> > Chrystal and my son Jakob has hearing lose, he is

> > only four and ahalf

> > months old. He just got his hearing aids last week,

> > and to me they are

> > really a pain. So if there is anyone with any

> > suggestion on how to keep

> > them on him please feel free to give me some advice.

> >

> > All messages posted to this list are private and

> > confidential. Each post is the intellectual property

> > of the author and therefore subject to copyright

> > restrictions.

> >

June 27, 2006

Hi Emylie/All,

I, too, had problems with Jake when he was younger. One of the

things we did was purchase a pilots cap from Hannah Andersson's

website. They are really light weight. It worked really well. He

wasn't able to reach them to pull them off and put in his mouth. He

did occassionally knock them loose but it made me feel much better

having the cap on.

Later, we discovered that the audi we had been seeing didn't program

all of the programs on his hearing aids. So, if the hearing aids

were switched by accident to programs 2 or 3, they were basically

turned off. So, you might want to make sure all the programs on the

aids are programed exactly the same so this doesn't happen to you.

We felt so bad for him after we realized that. Once, we had the

other switches programmed correctly, he pretty much left them

alone. It's worth checking into. My therapist was able to identify

that. I couldn't because his aids are not powerful enough for me to

tell if they are on or not. The only way I can tell if they are on

is if they whistle before I put them in his ears.

Also, just from experience, don't accept that the aids whistle when

they're in a child's ears. Your audi should be able to get a good

tight fit. One thing that helped with that was asking for a helix

lock on ours. It helps with a tighter fit and it also makes it

harder to get them on/off. Also, using the Oto-Ease lubricant

helped to get them in and to make the ear mold fit better.

Hope some of this helps!

I really hope

> > > I am doing this right I am new at this. My name is

> > > Chrystal and my son Jakob has hearing lose, he is

> > > only four and ahalf

> > > months old. He just got his hearing aids last week,

> > > and to me they are

> > > really a pain. So if there is anyone with any

> > > suggestion on how to keep

> > > them on him please feel free to give me some advice.

> > >

> > > All messages posted to this list are private and

> > > confidential. Each post is the intellectual property

> > > of the author and therefore subject to copyright

> > > restrictions.

> > >

June 27, 2006