3y/o saying 'what' all the time- normal or hearing issue?

[Needaholidayplease]

In the past month or two my 3 year old has been next level annoying with saying 'what?' after I've said anything, literally have to repeat most things two or three times. Thought it was just an age thing but now I'm beginning to think he might genuinely be having difficulty hearing and/or understanding me. Has anyone had anything similar?

yes, my son had this and his ears were blocked with ear wax.

Thanks for replying, I feel bad now I thought he was just going through a particularly annoying stage I'll get in touch with the GP. How did they treat it?

Depends. My daughter used to tune me out at that age but she could hear ‘would you like some chocolate buttons?’ from 100 paces.

Does he respond if you say his name from across a room for example? Does he increase the volume on the TV?

I think the main thing we've noticed is that we regularly have to repeat things to him, even quite simple things questions (eg stuff he wouldn't normally have trouble understanding). Plus a couple of earaches in the past few weeks, though we thought they were linked to colds.

If it is just a wax build up they may ask you to go away and use drops for a few days to soften it and then they will likely syringe the ears, its not as drastic as it sounds just a large plastic syringe looking tube with warm water that they push into the ear and the wax breaks up and pops out. It may not be this though. Some children that age need grommets so there are a few things. First stop definitely GP to check it out and advise from there.

we have to use olive oil ears drops, we found earol worked best, he was referred to ent for possible microsuctioning but by the time of his appointment his hearing seemed to have improved. As my husband has had microsuctioning of his ears and found it painful, we didn't want to put him through it.

If we don't keep on top of the regular oiling his hearing deriorates very quickly so it is an ongoing issue. I can see that his ears are pretty much blocked up with wax at the moment but as his hearing is currently not too bad and it is not bothering him we are continuing to manage the situation with daily ear drops.

Thanks all, v reassuring!

We had this and was glue ear

Dd did this. As she sat at the table colouring I whispered “ do you want some chocolate cake?” And she put her creation diet and shouted “ Yes!”.

She just really liked the idea of people saying things twice