Babyworn

We received our Babyworn upgrade from Cochlear this week. I have been so excited to try this new product. I have to admit its' arrival was a little anti-climatic.

First, the babyworn cord is way too long. There is a lot of extra cord flopping around which Drew likes to play with. He accidentally pulls off his processor and coil all day long, especially in the car. This creates a problem because then he is chewing on his processor and coil. My Mom had to pull her car over after therapy the other day to get the processor out of Drew's mouth!

Second, the babyworn allows a child to use the standard BTE in a way that fits the child. The problem is that the BTE does not have a setting to turn on an audible alert if the coil is not on. With the bodyworn, we would always hear four beeps if Drew's coil would fall off (rolling around on the floor, running into something or just removing it himself). Now we don't have any alert other than the flashing red lights on the processor, which are often hidden by his Hanna Andersson hats. The other night he was attempting to remove all of the ornaments from the Christmas tree. I was saying, "Drew, that's a no-no." He is a very good boy, so usually when we say "no," he stops whatever he is doing. But this time there was no response. He wouldn't respond to his name or anything. I got up from the couch and walked over to him to find that both of his coils had come off. It's a little frustrating to not know exactly when they come off.

I do think that Drew likes the babyworn better and these small issues will go away as Drew gets older. The babyworn is significantly lighter in weight and takes up by far less space on his back than the bodyworn. I think we are going to continue to use the pockets on his clothing to help minimize the amount of cord that is hanging idle on his back. And as he grows, he will be able to tell us exactly when his coils come off, so the audible indicator will not be nearly as important as it is now.

Also in the free upgrade was the Snugfit. I purchased it from Cochlear's website in August, so we already knew what an AWESOME product the sungfit is! I don't know what we would have done without it the past four months! We used the mic-lock for the first month. They were a disaster. The processor was always falling off of Drew's ear.

It's funny what you get used to. I was so against ordering the bodyworn when we placed Drew's equipment order back in April, but our audiologist insisted on it. The babyworn was not available and she was opposed to pinning the processors to Drew's shirt because she felt Drew would not be able to localize sound as well with his ears on his shoulders vs. on his ears. After using the bodyworn for five months, I have to say that I am so thankful we have it. I can not imagine in the early days, when Drew was still so young, rolling on the floor all the time, trying to make sure his processors were on without the audible alert.