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Why Are My Baby's Hearing Aids Whistling? And Will They Ever Stop?
Dealing with a side effect of baby's first hearing aids.
You just got baby's first hearing aids, at long last! Hooray!
It's the start of an exciting new chapter.
But, wait, what is that high pitched whistling sound?
It seems to come and go. And, it's driving you crazy. We totally understand!
That sound is called feedback. It happens when the hearing aid molds are too loose, or if something's rubbing against them.
When babies are small, their ears are growing quickly. So, the time lag between getting the ear mold taken, and getting it dispensed results in molds that are too small.
Small molds = lots of feedback.
Is it driving my baby crazy too?
We were concerned that the sound would annoy our baby.
But, people in the know tell us that babies are probably not hearing the feedback at all.
So, they're probably blissfully unaware of it!
Do I just need to learn to live with this?
When the molds get too small, yes, we family members just have deal with it.
But, there are a few tricks that can help! Ask your audiologist what they recommend. Here's what helped us:
- Rushing the Order - Our audiologist "rushed" the molds order to make them arrive sooner.
- Silicone - We briefly used Mack's silicone earplug putty in a way that our audiologist recommended. It helped fill the gap between the mold and her ear. We only used a small amount but we were still always concerned she'd choke on it. (Bonnets helped limit that risk, but not entirely—so we recommend having a discussion with your audiologist if you're thinking about using silicone.)
- Settings - Our audiologist adjusted the hearing aid settings to limit the feedback sound. Hearing aid settings are some kind of wizardry so we don't have too much information on that.
Those things were helpful temporarily.
Does it get better?
The great news is, as your baby grows, this becomes less and less of an issue.
After a few rounds of ear molds, the problem started to solve itself.
So hang in there! It's definitely not forever.
