This article will help you understand how to look after your baby's hearing. What noisy situations should be avoided. Then, what the best earmuffs are for your child when any loud noises cannot be avoided.
To prevent hearing damage, keep your baby away from loud noises.
Keep reading to learn more about the best ways to protect your ears.
Infant ear protection is important because babies and children have more sensitive, better hearing as you do as an adult. But over time, this will get damaged, and hearing loss cannot be easily repaired. In most cases, hearing loss is permanent.
It is easy to protect and care for your child’s hearing. So that it will still be good in later life. It just requires that you keep them away from noises that are too loud. When this is not possible, they need to wear some sort of baby ear protection.
This article will help you understand how to look after their hearing. What noisy situations should be avoided. Then, what the best earmuffs are for your children when any loud noises cannot be avoided.
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“Noise that is potentially dangerous to an adult is even more dangerous to a child”
These days we know a lot more about hearing loss than we did in the past. In this article, when I talk about permanent hearing damage, I am not trying to scare you. When loud noise damage hearing, the cost will almost always be a tiny imperceptible change. It will not be immediate deafness or noticeable damage.
However, as the damage builds up, it will become noticeable in later life. So infant earmuffs should be used in noisy locations. I was an infant in the late 1960s, when no children had earmuffs. I am now in my 50s and have quite bad Tinnitus. I have difficulty hearing conversations in loud locations. Had my hearing been looked after when I was younger, this would not be a problem.
Do your children a favor, and use infant ear protection whenever necessary. At least until they are old enough to do it for themselves
As with everything, there are good toddler ear muffs, and there are bad. When choosing a pair for general everyday use, you should be looking at the following criteria:
You do not want
As mentioned above, kids hearing protection is necessary. The ears of an infant, are more sensitive, making them vulnerable to loud noises, or prolonged sounds. Permanent hearing damage can quickly happen at a young age.
In fact, research has shown that one in eight children has suffered some permanent hearing damage. This can be avoided.
Obviously avoiding loud and prolonged noises, is the best way of not getting hearing damage. Of course this is not always practical or possible.
Everyone has to go to noisy cities, use cars, planes, and trains, or use power tools in their homes. Your baby/child will be exposed to some loud noises occasionally. It happens to everyone, and usually, there will be no noticeable problems.
However, taking baby ear protection with you when you, means that it can be used in the following noisy situations to help with
Their ears need to last a lifetime, so protect them with infant ear protection when needed. But how do you know what noises are too loud?
A lot of studies have been done into just what is too noisy for an infant’s or child’s hearing. It is not much different from what you can take (maybe slightly lower).
However, your baby will not tell you if something is too loud, or move away from noises that are uncomfortable. Sudden noises can startle and frighten your baby, as they do not understand what they are.
The Memphis Department of Education suggests that if you cannot hear a conversation around you easily, because of any background noise, or you can’t hear what someone is saying who is about three feet away, then the sound is too loud. Your infant would need kids ear protection in this situation.
If your child is older, and listening to music on headphones, you should not be able to hear the music from a distance of arm’s length away.
If in doubt, use baby ear plugs or kids hearing protection!
Below is an infographic of how loud common thing sound; this should help you get an idea of what volume common things are.
Of course, the volume will depend on how far away you are from the thing making the noise. A useful tool to help you know what volume your child is experiencing is your Smart Phone.
You can get apps that will measure the sound using the microphone and give you a reading of how loud the noises are. Below are links to an iPhone and Android app that will do this. (Just search for “decibel meter free” in the App or Play store)
After using one of these apps for a short while, you will know what is too loud and what is not. You will not be measuring the volumes for long, don’t worry.
When you measure how loud something is, you need to put the phone next to your child. Not the thing making the noise (e.g. Television). Sound reduces over distance, the only thing that matters is how much noise is being experienced by your baby.
Try to keep the noise down to normal conversation levels. If measuring the sound, try to keep it under 75 decibels mostly.
When the noise is going to be above this for any time, then you need to use some toddler ear muffs, like baby Banz earmuffs.
You should never use homemade ear protection on a child. For example, tissue paper. As you need to push this into the ear canal. This can scratch the very sensitive skin in there, and may also compact the wax in the ear.
In conclusion, it is important for parents to protect their infants' ears from loud noises. There are a number of ways to do this, such as using earplugs or noise-cancelling headphones.
It is also important to be aware of the dangers of loud noises and take steps to avoid them. By following these tips, parents can help ensure that their children's hearing remains healthy for years to come.
Please Note: Just because an ear defender is marked, for example, "Gunshot" - it will still cover other things, like "explosions"
The following are the recommended ear protection for kids. Two sizes of Muffs depending on age, and waterproof swimming/bathing plugs
Last update on 2023-11-22 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Newborn babies have fluid in their middle ear when they are born. This fluid makes there hearing slightly worse for the first few weeks. Most of the liquid is pushed out as they are being born, but the remaining should drain naturally.
This means they can hear, but not perfectly. Once the fluid has all drained, and the ear had time to mature, their hearing will be better than yours. Should your baby fail their initial hearing test, try not to worry too much. It is tough to accurately measure a babies hearing.
Between 2 and 10% of babies fail the first hearing test. Most of these children have nothing wrong with their hearing There are specific landmarks to look for in a baby's hearing.
Some children may be more at risk of having bad hearing
It is more important to use children's ear muffs if your child falls into one of these categories
It is okay if water goes into your baby's ear. What can cause a problem is if you try to get it out! Most of the water that your baby will be in will clean, and a healthy baby will not have complications.
The things that will cause water to be a problem is if it happens repeatedly and is not dried, or if you use Q-Tips on a baby. Putting anything into the ear canal can scratch the delicate skin in there. If this is damaged, this is when infections occur.
To dry a baby's ear, or any ears, wipe the outside with a towel, face the ears down and gently pull on the earlobe to help the water escape.
Wipe the ear again. You can get over the counter drops to help dry ears. Once again – Do not put Q-Tips, or cotton buds into a baby's ears
Some TV’s can be loud, but of course, they don’t have to be at full volume. A good TV at full volume can damage anyone’s ears. The best way to tell, is to use the methods mentioned in the article above or use a Smart Phone decibel meter.
Once the TV reaches approximately 70 decibels, at the position your baby is in, that is the maximum volume that for your TV. If the infant is young, not interested in the TV, or want to sleep, try using baby ear muffs for noise.
No. Most vacuum cleaners work at between 65 and 75 decibels, which is fine. You need to vacuum to keep the environment clean for your baby. When vacuuming, you can use a SmartPhone decibel meter if you are in any doubt about the volume.
Also, when using the vacuum cleaner, keep the cleaner as far from the baby as possible. Limit the duration of the cleaning sessions to 10 minutes (if the baby is in the same room) Should your baby not like the noise or you what them to sleep through the cleaning, then ear plugs for kids should be used.
Babies can sleep through some moderate noises, and they do not need silence. The sounds around the home should not wake them, unless sudden and loud.
All children are different, and some will sleep better in noisier environments But for the baby to have undisturbed sleep, use infant hearing protection.
Sound is not the only thing that can cause hearing loss in infants. Other things that on rare occasions can damage hearing are:
If you require more information, please check these references
Newborn Hearing , article, “www.webmd.com”, retrieved on, Sun 08-September-2019
Trouble Hearing Html , article, “kidshealth.org”, retrieved on, Sun 08-September-2019
Home , article, “www.infanthearing.org”, retrieved on, Sun 08-September-2019
Your Babys Hearing And Communicative Development Checklist , article, “www.nidcd.nih.gov”, retrieved on, Sun 08-September-2019
Purpose Of Newborn Hearing Screening Aspx , article, “www.healthychildren.org”, retrieved on, Sun 08-September-2019
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Experience : Hi, I am Nick, and I have suffered with ear problems my whole life, mainly tinnitus. I have tried a lot of products to help protect my ears over this period, and several devices to block out the constant ringing
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