How do I clean baby's ears?

[newmum234]

My DS (almost 5 months) has quite a lot of ear wax in his ears. I'm not talking about inside the ear canal (I know you're not meant to touch that) but the outside bit of the ear around the ear canal that you can see, IYSWIM.

My question is, how do I get into all the nooks and crannies of his ears to clean out the wax? I've tried a wet cotton wool pad folded up but it hasn't been that effective. An ear bud would definitely do the trick but I'm worried about it slipping and going down his ear canal, as he's constantly moving his head around now.

Does anyone have any advice?

Cotton wool pad over your little finger? Too big to fit down the canal so no chance of poking him, but flexible enough to get into the nooks. Anywhere your finger tip doesn’t fit, probably shouldn’t be cleaned.

Use one hand to steady his head, and with the other hand use a ear bud to clean the bits you can see.

I usually wait until its pickable with my little finger though, then get at it.

I used to give DD’s a clean with a flannel corner while in the bath.

You can also buy ‘baby’ cotton buds which are flared at the end to stop you sticking them in too far.

These are good, there are designed so you can’t accidentally go into the baby’s ear canal.

Those baby cotton safety buds look ideal - thanks all!