AirPods make connection sound but do not actually connect to iPhone

I've had my AirPods for several months and love them a lot! However recently (last 2 or 3 months), they have been doing a very annoying thing.

They will be working fine for a couple of days and then one day I will put them in my ears, hear the tone that tells me they connected and hit play on my iPhone, but the sound will still come out of the iPhone speakers and not the AirPods. I noticed also that the little headset icon that usually displays when the AirPods are connected only appears at the top for half a second and then disappears. I can sometimes force the AirPods to connect by using the command center controls, but then none of the auto-pausing features work when I remove one ear bud.

This is extremely annoying and continues to happen no matter how many times I perform a reset on the AirPods or select "Forget this device" from my bluetooth settings and perform the set-up again. I want to get this fixed as soon as possible and was wondering if anyone has had a similar issue or if I need to contact Apple.

Thanks!