Q: Sound no longer working

About a month ago, the sound on my iPhone 5S stopped working. I rebooted a couple times, no change. I took off the cover in order to clean the connections, and the sound started working again. Then today, it stopped working again. I don't have a cover on it anymore, but still not working. If I squeeze the sides towards the lower third of the phone, it will play sounds, but since I use this as my alarm clock, that won't work. How do I fix this?!?!?!?!

I just updated the iOS to 9.3.1 in case that would fix it, and it didn't.

I've had the phone since January 2015.