Your best tips for clearing a 5-year-old's ears while flying?

[Jacksmania]

The last few times we've flown anywhere, poor DS's ears have really hurt him on take-off but especially landing.

We've tried:

chewing gum
drinking water
blowing his nose
holding his nose shut while he blows

Nothing's been very successful. He's a real trooper, but I can see it hurts him. They clear up fine once we've landed, but if there's anything I could do to help while the plane is descending, I'd love to know what's worked for you.

TIA

When I was little & we did lots of long haul flights I had a similar problem & the air stewardesses (?) gave me a plastic tumbler for each ear with hot towel thing in each. I sat with them over my ears looking like a right numpty but it did decompress the air around my ear canals & gave a pain free landing.
Didn't understand the science / logic would love if someone could explain.

Earplanes. Google them - you can buy them in chemists, Boots etc or online. Get children's ones for a child. They are unbelievably effective.,put them in before take off and an hour before landing.

Poor lad, I went through this for a while and it's horrifically painful. I don't know why landing is so much more painful than take-off .

I bought some special earplugs in the end, called FlyFit. That might be the same kind of thing as the Earplanes mentioned by 1969Sarah. It did work really well (I only put them in just before we started descending), but bizarrely after I'd used them a few times the holding nose shut and blowing technique suddenly started working, and since then I've had little problem.

Earplanes? Never heard of them. Must Google.

Thanks all!

Ds1 used to suffer really badly when he was younger. I second the earplanes earplugs - they worked wonders and he's never complained since, whereas at J's age (before we discovered them) he'd be in tears on landing :(

well.ca/products/ear-planes-for-children_363.html

What I would say, though, is that these Boots ones do the job just as well and you get 2 pairs for about the same price as 1 pair of earplanes, so if you don't need them urgently, getting a friend in the UK to pop them in the post still works out better value as they're so lightweight: www.boots.com/en/Boots-Pharmaceuticals-Childrens-Flight-Earplugs-2-Pairs-with-Carry-Case-_1129536/

Thank you!!! I'll see if I can impose on someone :)