Our (11 months old today!) baby girl loves her hearing aids! Taking them out is usually the last thing that happens before we turn off the lights for the night.

But once that happens, the magic begins!

We settled into a daily routine to maintain her hearing aids. A daily routine helps keep our daughter's hearing aids in top condition and reduces guesswork when troubleshooting her hearing.

Our daughter's current hearing aids are the Phonak Sky Marvel 70 SP BTE model. Many of the supplies we use below are provided in the Phonak Pediatric Care Kit our daughter received through Early Intervention.

A daily routine helps keep our daughters's hearing aids in top condition and reduces guesswork when troubleshooting her hearing.

Take Them Apart

Frequency: Nightly

First we remove the earmolds from the hearing aids and set all of the pieces down on the kitchen counter. (It helps to do this in a well lit area.)

Remove the Wax

Frequency: Nightly

We use the tools that came with her hearing aids to remove wax lingering in or on the earmolds.

There's usually some amount of wax in the earmold hole.

We used to do this every other day or so, but staying top of the wax daily keeps them in the best shape.

Clear the Earmold Tubes

Frequency: Nightly

We use a hearing aid air puffer to blow out moisture from the earmold tubes.

There's usually some condensation in there—five pumps or so is more than enough to get it out.

Wipe Down Earmolds & Hearing Aids

Frequency: Nightly

We love Phonak C&C Wipes for cleaning/disinfecting.

We like to wipe down each earmold thoroughly, and then wipe all around each hearing aid—including the microphone.

Battery Change

Frequency: 2x/week

Our hearing aid takes size 13 disposable batteries. Depending on the day of the week we'll change them out for new ones.

We use a remote microphone on a daily basis, so changing batteries 2x/week does the trick for now.

Our current schedule is to put fresh batteries in on Wednesday and Saturday nights.

Sound Check

Frequency: Nightly

Once the hearing aids are clean, we check the sound using a listening tube.

We check each hearing aid on a nightly basis.

We used to test once or twice a week, but a daily routine is easier to remember. As our daughter gets more active it will be nice to have a current sense of how her hearing aids perform.

We test each ear's hearing aid with the six Ling sounds. Sometimes we talk or sing to make sure all's well.

• AH
• OO
• EEEE
• SH
• SSSS
• MMM

Being familiar with how our daughter's hearing aids sound has been helpful after audiology visits when they're programmed or when we need to troubleshoot potential drops in her hearing with her Early Intervention team.

A note of warning: be careful when testing someone else's hearing aids! Our daughter wears "super power" hearing aids, so listening to them too closely may damage our hearing. We bend the listening tube or hold it away from our ear to perform a safe and comfortable test.

Remote Mic Check

Frequency: 2x/week

As we wrote in our review of the Phonak PartnerMic, we love using a remote microphone to provide our daughter better access to sound.

The remote mic is a big part of our LSL life, so we check it's paired and operating properly 2x/week. We test when we change the hearing aid batteries— Wednesday and Saturday nights.

So far we haven't had issues with the remote microphone losing its Bluetooth pairing with the hearing aids.

Power Off

Frequency: Nightly

Once all of the above is done, we power off the hearing aids.

Our daughter's Phonak Sky Marvels power off when we open the battery doors. We use a special key to do that, so our daughter can't open them up and access the battery on her own.

Drying Beaker

Frequency: Use beaker nightly, change tabs 1x/month

We store the hearing aids in a drying beaker overnight to absorb moisture.

Our current drying beaker is a model provided by Phonak with the Sky Marvel hearing aids.

On a monthly basis, we change out the beaker's moisture-absorbing capsule. We use Phonak C&C Dry Caps, and like to write the date on the capsule with a marker... one less thing to remember!