grommets and hair washing/swimming

[eidsvold]

ell as you may know - dd1 had grommets put in last week. She has swimming lessons once a week and I bought ear putty and have to get a swimming cap for her to wear at swimming lessons.... okay. BUT tonight I tried to wash her long hair - left it for a week and it desperately needs washing. The ear putty won't really stay in... ( so for swimming hoping the cap keeps it in....) Do I need to really push it in her ears?? Concerned they may still be a bit tender from op....

Second part - bought one of those shampoo hats and she hates it - just kept pulling it off her head.... if she won't tolerate that HOW on earth am I going to wash her hair without getting water in her ears.... she hates having her hair washed at the best of time.. have just got her to tolerate it being done

Any suggestions - very very welcome....

Hi, my son had grommits a few years ago and is due to have them again in a few months along with a hearing aid that he is having fitted on wednesday.

When washing his hair i would put balls of cotton wool in his ears and then rub vaseline on the ends to waterproof it. the doctors told me to do this and i found it worked really well

my dd1 has now had her third set of grommits put in and this water in the ears is a complete nightmare. For washing her hair we use swimming earplugs and she is very good now at telling us when one is/has falling/fallen out. She has an ear bandit for wearing to swimming. I never got on with the cotton wool/vaseline technique although it was the recommended method with ear plugs being a second choice.

However my dd panics that water will get in her ears and her consultant has told us that he wouldn't be unhappy if she got a bit of water in her outer ear as it needs a bit of pressure to get through the grommit to the inner ear. She is under instructions not to do any diving under the water at swimming and to be honest I don't think the swimming lessons are much good until these grommits come out. I will have to get her lessons in a couple of years time.

Good luck with the hair washing, we currently have a wild witch on our ceiling. The girls have to smell it with their eyes closed in case it spits in their eyes!

We used ear plugs plus an ear bandit (to hold them in) for swimming..and didn't bother with any thing for hair washing .
Ds has had grommets for a year and a half now, and is due to have them re-inserted next month so it looks like we will be living with them for quite some time..I asked the Doc at the hospital how necessary the ear plugs are and he said 'Either they are prone to ear infections or they are not - I'd take him swimming without the plugs and if he gets an infection, use the plugs'.
So, we have now ditched the plugs, he goes swimming once a week and no infections so far.

thanks so much for all your info... will see how we get on tonight with vaseline and cotton wool.. Problem being here in Aus - swimming lessons are to my mind - compulsory and dd1 loves them.. she has come on so well lately and it would be a shame to stop them.

Gosh, DS hasn't needed anything like that. He has grommets and wears a silicon swimming hat that comes over his ears and stays pretty air tight (the type that 'proper' swimmers use). And when I wash his hair we use the shower to wet his head and rinse rather than a jug of water or submersing his head in the bath. He puts his head down rather than looking up because looking up causes the water to run into his ears but if he looks down the water runs off his ears and past the holes IYSWIM?
I was told that swimming wouldn't be a problem at all and it isn't, although DS insists on wearing his hat even if other children don't (which is unusual for him as he hates to be 'different'). Any water that has gone in his ears hasn't caused any problems with the grommets or caused any pain or infections, he just finds the feel of the water uncomfortable especially if it does go through the grommets ... he says he can feel the water running down his throat and can taste it ... eeeeuuwww, I don't think I would like that either.

eidsvold, we are in NZ as you know and DS swims all year round (compulsory in school during the summer terms) and our grommet doctor said there was no reason why they should stop the child from swimming .... I really would recommend the tight fitting silicon swimming hat ... it creats a seal around DS' ears ... they are also good for long hair ....

thanks for that ghosty - I was going to get her a silicon swim hat for sure and thought perhaps I needed to use some sort of ear plug as well.

Still not sure how we are going to cope with the hair washing - dd1 just hates havingher hair washed - it really is a saga!! she will probably not understand about putting her head forward etc....

Hi eidsvold, as I posted my last post I realised that the head forward thing maybe is not so easy .
I guess you should try the vaseline and cotton wool for that then and hopefully the swimming hat should do it for her swimming lessons ....
Good luck ...

i just tried it with the shampoo hat and we had a little success - think she managed to get a little bit of water in her ear maybe - she tipped the hat right up trying to get it off whilst trying to cuiddle me and get out of the bath at the same time iyswim..... but her hair is washed and so much better. Ghosty I am prepared to try anything!!

Soapy water is the culprit when it comes to ear infections according to my ENT. Swimming is no problem, the child should just never dive deeper than 1.2 metres as the pressure can damage the grommets.

I have been pretty lax with DS2's ears - I cover them with a towel when we was his hair and immediately make sure they are dry after bathing/hair washing. I make no additional provision for swimming and have never had a problem.