Folklore would have us clean ears with a cotton swab or Q-tip.  Unfortunately, this is a bad way to clean the ears; usually the cotton swab simply pushes the wax farther back into the ear canal, which may form a ball that is difficult to remove.  I don’t recommend cleaning ears with cotton swabs.

Sometimes I will recommend rinsing the ears regularly, since removing excess ear wax might allow me to see eardrums that might otherwise be difficult to examine.  If your baby gets excessive amounts of ear wax, I suggest that you run clean water into the ears at bath time, to loosen the wax and perhaps flush some of it out.  Folklore says that water in the ear canals might cause an ear infection, but fortunately this is not true.

–  David Epstein, MD