We were pleasantly surprised at one of our ~1-year old daughter's recent Audiology checkups... her doctor told us she averages over 13.5 hours/day of wear time.

Great news!

Experts in the LSL professional community recommend maximizing wear time—at least 10 hours per day.

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Here's what's working for us:

1. We Love Bonnets

Bonnets a/k/a pilot caps are our preferred retention method. We doubt we could've reached this level of wear time without them! (If you're considering that method, check out our article on our favorite bonnet brands and our guide to animal-themed bonnets.)

2. Morning and Evening Routines Bookend Our Day

Putting in and removing our daughter's hearing aids are the bookends to her day. We put them in immediately after she wakes up in the morning—on the changing table. We take them out right before a bath, and put them back in shortly after. We remove them at the last minute before bedtime—once she's laying in her crib, the second before we turn the lights out.

Need some ideas for hearing aid routines? Here's an article on how we're getting our 13-month old daughter started with self-advocacy.

3. A Maintenance Routine Keeps Us Ready to Go

We perform daily maintenance on our daughter's hearing aids after she goes to sleep every night. This way, her hearing aids are ready to go every morning. All we need to do is power them up. Mornings with an infant are too hectic to worry about changing batteries and keeping them clean!

4. We Leave Them In At Naptime

Since we use pilot caps for retention, we're comfortable with keeping our daughter's hearing aids in and on while she's napping during the day. (At 13 months old, she's still napping 2x/day.)

We think it's great that she's able to hear the moment she wakes up from naps.

And taking them out before nap time would add hours of off-time per week, since it can often take her a while to settle down into a nap.

It's worked well for us, but we suggest checking with your child's Audiologist about leaving devices in during naps.

5. The Wildcard: She Likes Them

A baby's cooperation goes a long way in increasing wear time... easier said than done!

We know that each baby is unique, and some infants simply do not like wearing hearing devices.

Our daughter started wearing hearing aids at a little over 3 months of age. She seemed to love them from Day One, but we also did some things along the way to reinforce positive feelings about her hearing aids.

• We sing songs when we put them in
• We embrace bold colors and designs for her hearing aids and ear molds
• We build enthusiasm around Audiology tests and ear mold impressions

What works best for your family?