Headphones for preschooler

[adc]

Need some for the plane ride. Is it safe for a 4 year old to use headphones ? Are there special ones for little ears?

 

[Casemily]

We have a leap pad for our 3 1/2 yo and they sell headphones that fit little heads. Laurie berkner band sounds fine to me in them too. Just make sure to listen first and adjust the volume to where you think it should be. Some headphones have a built in volume limiter, but most don't. Otherwise a rolled up pair of kids socks under the band on top of the head had worked for us with adult sized headphones. Make sure to use over the ear, not buds and should be fine.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

We found a very large selection of kid head phones at our local Toys R Us. They had at least 10 different kinds for us to choose from. All were small to fit kids little heads, and all were also volume limited so they can't blast their ears off.

We found the old fashion small foam ones were most comfortable for my son. We had to return a pair of the large over the ear, ear muff kind of head phones because he refused to wear them.

Make sure you practice with them before the plane. My son had to try 3 times before he would wear them, but he was 2.5, not 4.

We ended up with ones similar to this, although I think ours are phillips brand:
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3150699&cp=2255956.2273442.2255964.3250922.11911082.11855246.11855247&parentPage=family

 

[adc]

Thanks! I'll plan a Toys R Us trip!

 

[Pesky]

I ordered some kidzgear ones from Amazon and they work great. I always put them on me first to set it up and ensure the volume is right but they are comfortable and our kids have been fine with them for long plane rides.

 

[djmeredith]

There are Disney headphones for kids.

 

[ktlm]

You should be very careful in allowing children to use headphones or earbuds. You should really reseach the volume levels and controls in the ones you select. Studies have shown that since MP3, IPOD etc. use has brought the use of earbuds and headphones back to the forefront that the percentage of children and teens sustaining hearing loss has increased. Here is a couple of articles about headphone incuded hearing loss. The 1st one claims that today 1 in 5 teens has noise induced hearing loss, a rate 30% higher than in the 1980s and 1990s.

http://www.osteopathic.org/osteopat...ry/general-health/Pages/headphone-safety.aspx

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/38742752/...h/t/us-teens-has-hearing-loss-new-study-says/


Here is some information on how you can make sure your child's headphones and listening levels are safe:

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/features/audio/3460018/best-headphones-for-kids/

http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2012/03/headphone-safety-tips/

http://www.parentalguide.org/article-how-safe-are-earbuds-and-headphones-for-your-child.html

http://medicine.stonybrookmedicine....-permanent-hearing-loss-what-you-need-to-know


http://www.etymotic.com/pdf/guide_safe_listening_earphones.pdf

 

[GrnMtnMan]

My kids have been traveling since they were 3 months old and I haven't found a great solution.....well I have for the five year old, but more on that later.

First, are you confident he'll keep the headphones on his head? It took until age 3 or so before my first-born stopped fiddling with them.

Second, are you worried about hearing loss? I bought some kid-safe ones that would not let the volume get too loud for small ears. Problem is, on an airplane there is so much background noise that you have to turn the volume up. And the two models I bought would not let the volume get loud enough for the kid to hear what was playing!

So we ended up using this earbuds with hook model for a few trips. They would work for a while, then fall out and she'd get annoyed.

Finally, on my last trip I let her try out my noise-cancelling Bose QuietComfort 15 headphones that I bought for myself for train and plane trips. I assumed they wouldn't fit....I assumed wrong. They fit her head very well and she watched an entire move without and problem on our mist recent trip. So of course...the $10 kid designed models didn't work...but the $300 one did...

 

[bumbershoot]

Second, are you worried about hearing loss? I bought some kid-safe ones that would not let the volume get too loud for small ears. Problem is, on an airplane there is so much background noise that you have to turn the volume up. And the two models I bought would not let the volume get loud enough for the kid to hear what was playing!

This is the exact problem we have encountered. DS simply cannot hear anything with the kid headphones when on a plane. So although he uses those at other times, on a plane he wears normal ones.

And we check the volume every so often, leaning down to his head to listen (if we can hear it, it's too loud).