DD will be a freshman this fall at a huge university ~4 hours away from home. She’s hearing impaired and is concerned about (1) waking up for early morning classes, and (2) being a considerate roommate. Right now, she uses the alarm on her cell phone and it goes off forever before she finally hears it or I come in and shut it off/wake her up. I’ve seen “sonic boom” alarm clocks advertised, but she’s afraid it would wake up the entire dorm.
She’s going to her school’s first available orientation so hopefully will be able to schedule classes that start a little later in the morning. Other than that, does anyone have any suggestions?
One of my kids used a version of this clock: http://www.sonicalert.com/Sonic-Bomb-with-Super-Shaker-TM-p/sbb500ss.htm - you can shut off the sound and the disc vibrates/shakes wherever you put it (under pillow or mattress for example). Can’t say it solved my son’s sleep issues, but it might work. The disc vibrates pretty violently.
Way back in the day, my first college roommate was 98% deaf. She used a light on a timer. We had bunk beds, she took the top bunk and clipped the light to the top bed frame (maybe it clipped, I am not remembering). She aimed the light right at her eyes and woke up when the light came on. I think it is something she grew up using. The light did not bother me because it was aimed at her instead of me and the upper bunk kind of shadowed the glare. I would have been bothered more by hearing person using a regular alarm clock.
My son has hearing loss also and uses the Sonic Alert. (He is still in high school.) I have actually heard that a lot of students with normal hearing are getting bed shakers because they don’t wake roommates. However, if the bed shaker falls out of the pillowcase or from out of the fitted sheet, it can rattle against the bed frame and not wake one up as intended (but will wake the roommates! I can hear it down the hall when this happens!) They are not terribly expensive, so I agree with others – pick one to try before college starts.
My son (who isn’t hearing impaired, but is a deep sleeper) would sleep with his alarm on vibrate and ring, and would put his phone inside his pillow case. That would wake him up. You D could try that now to see if that would wake her up.
Is one of her ears better than the other? My brother is deaf in one ear, so he makes sure to sleep with his “good ear” up.
The vibrating alarms can fall under the bed, etc. I’d recommend a flashing light alarm: http://www.adcohearing.com/product813.html These plug into a lamp and flash the lamp on and off when they go off.
My H, who suffers from hearing loss, has a pillow speaker. He turns it up to high volume; I rarely hear it. However, he’s been turning it off in his sleep, so 2 years ago I got him a Shake Awake wrist alarm. Perfect! The vibration on his arm wakes him right up and takes some dexterity to turn off so he doesn’t usually fall back asleep. He was never “trained” as a kid to wake up to an alarm…
The Fitbit Flex has a vibration alarm. I dont know how well it works, but assuming it does then she could kill two birds staying healthy at the same time. Even if only used for the alarm I think wearing them is currently fashionable.
(edited to add: I notice now that purpleacorn already mentioned the Jawbone version of fitness band, which also has the vibration feature.)
I have a similar problem, mainly an issue of what I guess is my body “adjusting” to the noise it gives off. I’m not sure if you mean medically hearing impaired or just the same sort of problem that I have, but what I’ve found works best is using about 3 different alarm tones and changing them every night.
Even if only used for the alarm I think wearing them is currently fashionable.