Our hard of hearing baby is growing up... she's a toddler!

As she grows, we want to help her take more responsibility for her assistive technology. We'd love our daughter to take interest—and pride!—in her hearing aids, retention devices, and the routines around them.

We'd love our daughter to take interest—and pride!—in her hearing aids, retention devices, and the routines around them.

So we're building some small self-advocacy steps into her daily routine.

“Good Morning!”

One of our daughter's Early Intervention goals is to wear her hearing aids during all waking hours.

So once she wakes up in the morning... the clock is ticking!

Before we take her out of her crib, we say good morning and offer a brief preview of the day. We mention her hearing aids in our "good morning" message.

‍"Good Morning! It's a beautiful sunny day! I'm going to pick you up, get you dressed, and we'll put in your hearing aids! Then we'll have a bottle and go play with your toys."

Changing Table Routine

Once our daughter's on the changing table, we wipe off her ears and face with a warm towel, taking care to dry her ears thoroughly to prevent ear infections from moisture.

Then the hearing aids go in!

By this time, we removed her hearing aids from their drying beaker, turned them on, and double-checked the battery door.

We keep her hearing aids in a wood box. We keep another small wood box handy from which to offer her hearing aids.

The routine goes smoother when there's only one hearing aid at a time for her to take out of the box.

So, one by one, we offer her hearing aid to her from the tiny box.

"It's time to put in your hearing aids! Can you take this one ouuuuuuut of the box?"

It's a small request, but by removing the hearing aid from the box herself, our daughter is now an active participant!

...and we can build on this action going forward.

...and it's a great opportunity to practice the word "out."

When we started this routine, we'd simply acknowledge her taking the hearing aids out of the box and then put them in her ears.

"Thank you! You took your left hearing aid ouuuuuuut of the box. Now let's put it in your ear."

Lately we added more elements to the routine, including:

• We ask for her help to check that the battery door is closed.
• We watch the blinking green light together, to make sure the hearing aid is on.
• We check that the ear molds are attached to the ear hook.
• ‍We discuss the current color/pattern of her ear molds.

Next on our list: getting her to put the hearing aid up to her ear!

Sing a Song

Singing is a BIG part of our LSL Lifestyle!

We love to sing while we put our daughter's hearing aids in.

We play around with the lyrics and make up new ones about our daughter's hearing aids and sound in general.

Helping our daughter build a happy and confident association with her hearing aids is top on our list.

We find it helpful for a couple reasons.

Helping our daughter build a happy and confident association with her hearing aids is top on our list.

We also notice that our daughter sometimes gets upset when we take off her hearing aid bonnet or remove her hearing aids. We think it's because she thinks it's bedtime... even if it's 2pm in the afternoon! So singing the song helps to soothe her during speech therapy sessions when we adjust her hearing aids or remove/replace them during single-ear sound checks.

“Time to Put On Your... Bonnet!”

We include our daughter's hearing aid retention device in our self-advocacy steps.

Our go-to retention device is the bonnet, and—as of this writing—she's 13 months old and still wears it with ease.

So once her hearing aids are on, we mention her bonnet.

"It's time to put on your _________."

Lately, to our heart's delight, she answers back "bonnet!"

Aside from melting our hearts, it's a great opportunity for her to be more aware of the different pieces of her assistive technology toolkit.

So we discuss her current day's bonnet ("Oh, it's your pink bonnet with ruffles!") and then put it on.

And why not hum along to Easter Parade by Irving Berlin along the way?