3 year old DD needs Glasses

[alfiethetortoise]

My dd has seemed to have developed a bit of a lazy eye. It happened after she got a stick in the other eye, and was on antibiotics.

I took her today for an eye test, and she is long sighted and will need treatment to correct the right lazy eye. Next week we go back to they can put drops in (not looking forward to this - she hates drops) and she is also being referred to the hospital.

DD seems fine, she wanted to choose some glasses on the way out. I however feel a bit bad about it. I never had glasses as a child, dad never, but my sister and brother did. She may just need them for a little while but we wont know more until we get referred to the hospital.

I am also worried about getting them to be kept on, them breaking (is it worth having an extra pair?) and how others will respond to them. I know it's silly and there are much worse things that can happen to your child but I also feel a bit guilty.

Will we be forever to the hospital and opticians? Will she grow out of them? Are they eye drops painful?

Thanks!

Eye drops are fine.. not painful at all, tho she may have fuzzy vision for a few hours (they dilate the pupils) but as she isn't driving that won't be too much of a problem:)

Yes to a spare pair... my optician was fab and we constantly had one pair being fixed for YEARS.. as she is little she will have an NHS voucher towards the cost which helps with the expense of them.

Others reactions? The only person who is going to feel sad about it is you. Honest! I can say that hand on heart. These days so many children wear glasses from an early age that they are totally acceptable and 'cool' (one of my DD constantly tried to 'fail' her check ups because she wanted glasses and now at 17 she has a pair with clear lenses in..cos she loves the look!)

My son got glasses at 6 months of age..(finding ones that fit was fun!) and I was GUTTED. In actual fact it was the least of his problems..he has learning difficulties and autism and physical disabilities too... but what upset me the most was him needing glasses!!! A hangover from being called 'four eyes' all my school life!

But no-one else saw it that was..they just thought he looked cute:) (He did!) and after a few months they were just part of him.. they still are and always will be and when he takes them off to shower and sleep he looks oddly naked to me!

Often little children who are long sighted, grow out of needing glasses.. two of my children had them for a couple of years and then as they grew the prescription lessened til they didn't need them any more.. only DS2 will wear them forever and he is REALLY long sighted! So it may nor be a forever thing:)

Hope that cheers you up a bit:):)

My DD has been wearing glasses since she was 2, and I was also sad about it, but DD has never felt sad about wearing them. I am ok with it now, she looks quite cute with them on.
DD also has a lazy eye and is longsighted and we have hospital trips to see the optician, consultant and the orthoptist.

Depending on how severe her longsightedness is, she may well grow out of it. (My DS grew out of his longsightedness and didn't need to wear glasses after the age of 6.)

I found the first appointment at the hospital took the longest, as you'd probably expect. Once the initial appointment was over, we returned 6 weeks later, then another 6 weeks after that, then 3 months, then 3 months...then DD was given eye patches to treat the lazy eye, so we have to go back every 6 weeks at the moment to check the progress on the lazy eye.

The advice I was given to get DD to wear the glasses was to encourage her without making an issue of it. I was told most children realise that they can see better with the glasses so tend to wear them off their own back after a while IYSWIM. DD doesn't always put her glasses on first thing, but she will put them on before we go out and certainly wears them most of the day now. It does take time though, it isn't instant and the hospital wont expect her to wear them every hour of every day instantly. It does take a little time for them to get used to wearing glasses.

My DD is quite happy to wear her glasses now, doesn't fuss at all. (I have much more problems getting her clothes on to go out tbh.)

As for them breaking them, unfortunately they do get broken, although not as often as you'd think, and they can be repaired or replaced on the NHS.
It is nice to have a spare pair, but please be aware that if you ask for a spare pair, you wont get those on the NHS, and will have to pay full price for them.

OTOH, if your DD loses her glasses, she will get a replacement pair on the NHS.

Thanks :)

We are going back to the optician on Thursday so they can sort her with some glasses. With Christmas looming, it could take a while for the hospital appointment to come through - 4 weeks before they have to offer an appointment and up to eight weeks further for her to be seen - so we could be looking at the end of February :( It also means that they may change her prescription, so i suppose I'd hold off getting a spare pair if this pair may be changed in the next 6-8 weeks. Handy to know we get a replacement if we 'loose' a pair ;)

She is 6.5 in both eyes, with the right eye 'wandering'. I have no idea what 6.5 actually means though! The lady at the optician's said that it hasn't been doing it long and because it's been caught early there is a high chance of successful treatment.

I think i feel slightly better about it. I think i was feeling guilty - DD was unplanned and i didn't take folic acid until about 3 months because i was living in china, was drinking most days for the first two months (before i found out obviously), had a stressful pregnancy - broke up with her dad, completing last year of degree and working full time. I have always been quite surprised she has so far been 'normal' - she is very bright and hit all the milestones early. I suppose that i will get used to it in time.

dd had glasses from 18 months old. She also had a squint and is long sighted (5.5 in one eye and 6.5 in the other) - the higher the numbers the more long sighted they are. She had patching treatment to improve the sight in the squinting eye. We have no family history of sight problems so it was a bit of a shock when we found out she would need glasses but they are part of her now and she doesnt look right without them

Ds2 (14) had very successful treatment for a lazy eye when he was 4 and ds3 (5) is wearing patches for 1 hour a day now after being patched for 4 hours a day for the last year. His treatment has also been very successful. It hasn't put either of them up nor down. They have both found the eye drops quite painful but ti is over very quickly..

Hi,

I thought I'd share our glasses story too :)

DS is 3 and has had glasses (for short sightedness) since about a year. It took about 6 mths I would say before he would wear them regularly (but obv at that age there was no reasoning or understanding on his part). Then all of a sudden he just took to them and wears them all the time now with hardly any probs. it might take a while for your dd to get used to then but I agree that the best approach is probably to try to be relaxed and no-big-deal about it.

I also was worried about potential mickey taking about glasses wearing (I suffered terribly as I had very strong glasses as a child and they were the horrible NHS awful massive plastic ones ) but glasses are so much more fashionable and stylish now. At a year DS got comments (from adults) about wearing glasses for being 'cute' but nothing now as it really isn't that unusual - I see loads of kids out with them.

DS also has a suspected lazy eye and I think we are about to have to start treatment for it. I'm a little nervous about patching etc - I have a lazy eye and remember being patched when younger (and it never bloody worked for me). However I think there are surgery options more widely available if it doesn't work than 30 years ago in my day!

But certainly DS never gets any comments from the other kids at nursery or pre-school. And his glasses are about 1000 times nicer than I ever had as a child!

Oh and NHS vouchers wise, I don't know if it depends on the strength of the prescription but my ds gets them all free and repaired as often as required (a lot less often now he keeps them on! In the first 6 mths we were there about every other week!). He has also been allowed a spare pair on prescription at some points, it depends on how much his prescription has changed each time. If not much they usually say he could use an old pair (and we haven't had a problem yet) but when his prescription was changing more and he was breaking them more often he did get a spare pair on prescription. I seem to recall that there was some criteria for whether he could have a spare pair or not depending at least partly on the strength of the prescription.

Good luck - hope it all goes well

My DS got his first pair of glasses when he was 3. He's shortsighted. We never had problems with him not wanting to wear them. He realised straightaway that he could see with them. However, I did pay for a flexible frame as I got fed up very quickly with the weekly trips to the opticians to have them repaired.

My DS got his first pair of glasses at 10 months. I cried when he first got them, but I needn't have worried. He loves them. Everyone comments on how cool they are. The flexible frames are the best, there is nothing to adjust or break. In 3 years we have only had them repaired once - he had to have the lenses changed because they were scratched, well actually they looked like baby teeth marks.

Make sure DD puts them in the same place everytime she takes them off. We have a special animal holder. It will save those frantic turning-the-house-upside-down searches when you are getting ready in the morning.

You will likely have more regular visits whilst DD is patching. However, now that DS no longer has a lazy eye we only go to hospital/optician a few times a year.

My 15 month old niece has glasses both her eyes go into the middle badly, she's had them about a month and is happy to wear them, she is probably going to need patches they go back soon to hospital to see.

My 6 year old is slightly long sighted (only 1.25 in right and 1 in left) but has glasses for school work/tv and he's fine about them.