How we'll be celebrating Christmas
Published Date: 24 Dec 2020
Christmas time in our house is always fun, busy and noisy, because we have four boys and they’re full of beans. Charlie was born with microtia atresia which results in an underdeveloped left ear and hearing loss. Charlie has a BAHA 5 to help him hear, but we still like to take his deafness into consideration at Christmas time (and throughout the rest of the year).
Simple things can be a huge help to Charlie. For example:
- If Charlie hasn’t heard us get up on Christmas morning, then we wake him up to get him to come and join his brothers in opening their Christmas gifts.
- We let Charlie have some ‘Charlie time’ where he can sit in a room on his own and play his console or read. Trying to listen and understand people all day can be tiring so it’s better for Charlie to have some time to himself to relax for a little bit.
- We turn the television up when we watch a family movie and position Charlie nearer to the screen in case his brothers make any noise.
- We try to make sure that Charlie is looking at us when we speak as he can lip-read a little, read facial expressions and hear us better if we’re facing him.
- His brothers try to keep noise to a minimum when I’m communicating with Charlie (though this doesn’t always happen!)
- The ceiling speakers are turned down during mealtimes so that Charlie can hear us and join in with conversation.
We’re looking forward to spending time together this Christmas, the boys are super excited and we hope you all have a great one too!
