Cleaning baby’s ears: What you need to know
Your baby’s ears may need cleaning and it’s a delicate process, here’s what you need to know
It’s natural that as we clean out our own ears of wax that if your baby has wax in their ears we would do the same for them. However, the advice is to not attempt to clean your baby’s ears of wax but to leave it alone.
Do I clean my baby’s ears at all and if so how?
You need to keep your baby’s ears clean by cleaning the outer ear and the skin around it which is best done while you are bathing your baby. The best way to do it is with a washcloth or cotton ball and some warm water. Gently wipe behind baby’s ears and around the outside of each ear.
Hard as it may be to believe, the wax actually keeps your baby’s ears clean and acts as a barrier against germs stopping germs infecting or irritating your baby’s delicate eardrum. Cotton buds don’t remove wax, they just push it down the ear canal so experts say no one should use them for cleaning ears.
Due to the delicate nature of your baby’s eardrum, advice is clear that you should never stick anything into their ear canal as it’s so easy to cause damage. If there’s a sign of earwax build-up you can see in the ear, or your baby seems in discomfort or pain and is grasping their ears, or you notice that your baby is not responding to your voice or other sounds, rather than attempt to clear the wax, contact your GP as there could be an infection, which can become serious if untreated.