baby qtips are fine , qtips are just discouraged cause you can damage your ear , and i've done it as a kid , but the baby qtips keep you from going into the ear canal so you're just cleaning the outside and that's safe
I have baby qtips that work well. They're too big to go into the hole but small enough to clean the crevices.
I use q tips but I don’t put them into his ear. I only clean what I can see so I roll it along the ear hole and it seems to get a good amount out without me putting it into his ear. We can see when his ears need cleaning
We have an ear picker and we only really use it if we see a big build up of wax by the opening.
They sell safe baby q-tips, with a bigger end to make sure it doesn't hurt the baby's ear. Available in your local pharmacy/store. This is how the shape is supposed to look like to be safe: