Hearing protection for babies

buzzlatka · Post by **buzzlatka** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 8:42 pm

Getting ready to take the little guy up for the first time. He is 6 weeks old. Any advice or experience in taking babies up in the 170. I have talked to many friends who all seem to create some sort of hearing protection, but nothing that seems to really work.
Any ideas?

Armed with the car seat and the stroller we are going to try out columbia, CA tomorrow morning. The adventure begins!

N2865C · Post by **N2865C** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 10:44 pm

Good info on flying with kids here.......
http://www.avweb.com/news/columns/182653-1.html

spiro · Post by **spiro** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 11:25 pm

lucky kid, mine didn't get to go up 'till she was 8 wks old. At 10 wks to Puntilla Lake for Iditarod.

that young the only thing we could get to work was yellow foam earplug, split lengthwise into quarters. Then held in w/ tape and a knit cap over all.

got her a real kid-sized headset (hot pink!) at about 18 mos.

- paul

buzzlatka · Post by **buzzlatka** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 4:05 pm

Thanks for the info.

I did a bunch of research on the internet and basically found that putting something in his ear would probably be the best, problem is that we were not really wanting to shove something in his ears.
Using a model from the AOPA website I manufactured some earmuffs using breast pump parts. Basically plastic cups filled with cotton and silicon seals. I am not sure how much it actually helped but it gave us piece of mind.
He handled the flight great, slept the whole way.
O22 was cool, would have been nice to have more time and hang out with the skywagon fly-in. Also road into columbia is under construction. The shoulder is ripped up so it made navigating the jogging stroller very tricky.

Post by **GAHorn** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 7:16 pm

I take it your left-side control yoke is removed.

buzzlatka · Post by **buzzlatka** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 9:35 pm

nope

Post by **GAHorn** » Tue Jul 04, 2006 8:38 am

The first pic looked to me as if the babe was in a car-seat installed facing backwards, and that it might interfere with the yoke. I guess it's not as far forward as I imagined.

buzzlatka · Post by **buzzlatka** » Wed Jul 05, 2006 4:27 am

He was in the car seat facing backwards behind my seat. The wife rode in the back seat also with him. Jogging stroller behind the rear seat, and the diaper bag strapped in riding shotgun.

Post by **Bruce Fenstermacher** » Wed Jul 05, 2006 2:03 pm

Ahh I see it now. The door post we are seeing in the photo is the rear door post. I had the same initial reaction George did.
Thanks

Bill Hart · Post by **Bill Hart** » Wed Jul 05, 2006 2:35 pm

That is awesome. Both of my boys were flying about the same age as yours. We used the orange earplugs for kids. They are a soft chewing gum texture that molds well and are used for keeping water out of their ears when they have tubes but also work well in the airplane. You might then also use your brest pump contraption to help hold the ear plugs in place.

buzzlatka · Post by **buzzlatka** » Wed Jul 05, 2006 2:57 pm

Bill, what exactly are the earplugs you are talking about. I looked at a few and then looked at his ears, very tiny ear canals at 7 weeks now. I know that the plugs offer better protection but I am thinking that I will hurt him if I put plugs in.
Thanks.
Steve

Bill Hart · Post by **Bill Hart** » Wed Jul 05, 2006 7:10 pm

The plugâ€™s I am talking about you can get anywhere I get them at Wal-Mart. They are in the childcare area and the brand name is Macâ€™s. They are orange in color and may look big for your baby but you can pinch off just what you need. It is not something you try and stick down the canal like those yellow foam things that are for adults. They are a soft plastic almost like chewing gum and you mold them in the outer ear. They work great. I think the intended purpose is to keep out water, but you wonâ€™t find out about that until ear infections and tubes. Oh what fun.

buzzlatka · Post by **buzzlatka** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 5:37 pm

Here is an update on my never ending problem of protecting the little guys hearing. By the way he is almost 5 months now and the old solution posted above doesn't work any more. He just knocks my home maid earmuffs off.

Found a new solution in the form of earmuffs from a company called pelcor. I found them at
http://earplugstore.stores.yahoo.net/chearpr.html

They are basically smaller sized earmuffs with some good decibel ratings.
I have yet to fly with them, that will happen tomorow, so take my opinion lightly.

Basically I tried the in ear putty stuff but it was a little difficult and I was scared of forcing it too hard in his ear. I was also concerned about the actual noise protection and the fact that it made an airtight seal on his ear.

I looked at child headsets from a variety of companies but most had the same size speaker (earcup) as the adult version with a smaller seal. I tried some out at the pilot shop in petaluma and they were way to big for my guy.

These earmuffs seem to do the trick, and he doesn't seem to mind them. I am guessing as he gets around 1.5 to 2 years I will switch to the child intercomm headsets. For now these seem to work.

AR Dave · Post by **AR Dave** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 3:45 am

That's great to see these pictures. You might consider resizing them to something like 448 x 336 or less so that we don't have to scroll to the right to finish reading this sentence.

Dave

Dward · Post by **Dward** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 1:21 pm

buzzlatka, thanks for the info. I just placed my order for a set of those child ear muffs. Seth, my 8 mo old hasn't flown yet. Oh the shame of it

. I too was concerned that ear plugs might keep his ears from clearing so I,ve been looking for a better way.