Babies cry on planes because their ears hurt. But there’s a maneuver you can do to manually pop your ears. If you show it to the parents, they can do it with the baby and the baby will shut the fuck up almost immediately.
Put your thumb in the soft meaty spot behind your earlobe, right behind where your jaw meets your skull. Put your index finger in the Concha Cavum. Your goal is to essentially grab your ear right inside the Anti Tragus.
Now gently grab, and lift upwards (towards 12 o clock on the above image) by pushing upwards with your thumb. Once you’re lifted, you’re going to slowly and gently roll backwards towards 11 and then 10 o clock. You’re not twisting, you’re just changing the direction that you’re pulling, like moving an analog stick on a game controller. As you continue to roll backwards, (it happens at around the 10 o’ clock position for me, but individual angles may vary from person to person,) your ear canal will suddenly open up (and your ear will pop if it needs to). And I said to go slowly and gently because it happens fairly quickly.
Your skull has an opening (called the external acoustic meatus) that allows sound to enter your ear canal. You’re basically grabbing the fleshy and cartilaginous parts of your ear canal, and moving it around slightly to stretch the parts inside of the skull opening. This stretching allows trapped pressure to equalize. But that stretching is also why I said to go slowly and gently, as that part of the ear isn’t used to being stretched so you’ll feel it very suddenly.
Have the parents practice it on themselves first, and then they can do it with the baby. It can be a little difficult for guys to do because baby’s ears are smaller, but usually mom’s fingers are thin enough if she doesn’t have super long nails.
Source: Have had several flights with crying babies, where I was able to have a frank “hey I don’t want to intrude but you can pop baby’s ears to get them to stop crying” conversation. If you approach them with an attitude of “I just want to help baby feel better” instead of being pissed that the baby is crying, the parents are likely to be receptive; No parent wants to see that their child is in pain.
Thanks for this info, I’ve actually done this process accidently by pulling my earlobes before, I’m glad I finally have an explanation on that slight pop I hear when I do that
When I was very young (and screaming on a flight), I remember a flight attendant bringing two Styrofoam cups to my mom to put over my ears. It helped immensely! This might be easier than the technique described above? I’ll read again and try this though.
Pressure changes still hurt me immensely, but I’ve developed my own way of dealing with it.
Babies cry on planes because their ears hurt. But there’s a maneuver you can do to manually pop your ears. If you show it to the parents, they can do it with the baby and the baby will shut the fuck up almost immediately.
Put your thumb in the soft meaty spot behind your earlobe, right behind where your jaw meets your skull. Put your index finger in the Concha Cavum. Your goal is to essentially grab your ear right inside the Anti Tragus.
Now gently grab, and lift upwards (towards 12 o clock on the above image) by pushing upwards with your thumb. Once you’re lifted, you’re going to slowly and gently roll backwards towards 11 and then 10 o clock. You’re not twisting, you’re just changing the direction that you’re pulling, like moving an analog stick on a game controller. As you continue to roll backwards, (it happens at around the 10 o’ clock position for me, but individual angles may vary from person to person,) your ear canal will suddenly open up (and your ear will pop if it needs to). And I said to go slowly and gently because it happens fairly quickly.
Your skull has an opening (called the external acoustic meatus) that allows sound to enter your ear canal. You’re basically grabbing the fleshy and cartilaginous parts of your ear canal, and moving it around slightly to stretch the parts inside of the skull opening. This stretching allows trapped pressure to equalize. But that stretching is also why I said to go slowly and gently, as that part of the ear isn’t used to being stretched so you’ll feel it very suddenly.
Have the parents practice it on themselves first, and then they can do it with the baby. It can be a little difficult for guys to do because baby’s ears are smaller, but usually mom’s fingers are thin enough if she doesn’t have super long nails.
Source: Have had several flights with crying babies, where I was able to have a frank “hey I don’t want to intrude but you can pop baby’s ears to get them to stop crying” conversation. If you approach them with an attitude of “I just want to help baby feel better” instead of being pissed that the baby is crying, the parents are likely to be receptive; No parent wants to see that their child is in pain.
Thanks for this info, I’ve actually done this process accidently by pulling my earlobes before, I’m glad I finally have an explanation on that slight pop I hear when I do that
When I was very young (and screaming on a flight), I remember a flight attendant bringing two Styrofoam cups to my mom to put over my ears. It helped immensely! This might be easier than the technique described above? I’ll read again and try this though.
Pressure changes still hurt me immensely, but I’ve developed my own way of dealing with it.