Longsighted 2.5 year old in one eye - advice please

[snakebite180]

Hello everyone hoping you can offer me some advice please. I am a dad of a 2.5 year old boy who at times when he is sleepy or when he was sucking on his bottle i notice one eye would close more than the other or look slightly glazed. (not sure what i class this as a lazy eye, or a squint etc ) i have took him to an eye specialist who indicates that one eye is longsighted and prescribed him as a 3.75 after doing a test with eye drops etc..the other eye is fine. i was a little taken back when he told me that he would need glasses (not sure what i was expecting) and that he would need to wear them indefinatley... his eyesight seems great he looks through books fine picks up smaller images etc.. not that im totally against glasses i just not sure if at 2.5 this is the best course to take . Do i leave it until he is 3 settled in at nuersery etc.. Could his longsighted correct itself? If i put glasses on him now will he become reliant on them etc..? just feels odd putting them on a 2.5 year old whos due to start nuersery in a few weeks. feeling a bit sad and deflated this morning and not sure what to do.. any advice would be great....

In my experience children's eyes can correct themselves up to about aged 8/9. With the help of glasses.

Ds1 had them from 4 to 8. I don't think wearing glasses is a big deal anymore.

I'm sure your ds will be fine with them. Nursery will be used to dealing with children who have glasses. :)

thanks for your reply... i guess it was the way he expalined it. he will have to wear them all the time.. kind of took me aback....not sure how bad 3.75 in one eye actually is.....

3.75 is reasonably high but not shocking.

By all the time, did he mean all day? I think that's usual. I don't think they can tell how well your ds's eyes will respond yet.

I Didn't realise ds would not have his glasses permanently until the appointment where they said he wouldn't need them anymore.

Ds is now 18 and hasn't needed them since.

Firstly, don't panic, most babies and toddlers are longsighted. Some will grow out of it as their eyes grow bigger, and some will retain it and always need glasses. If your son has one eye worse than the other, it's especially important he wears glasses all day as this will help his binocular development and may prevent the need for patching treatment.

You've done really well to pick it up so early, you should feel really good about that, he will stand a really good chance of developing normal vision x

im just conerned that once he puts them on things will get worse and ill probably have thought 'what if' id have left it a few more months, or'what if' i never got this looked into - what would have happened,. i appreciate how that sounds.

The sooner his vision is corrected the better. Well done for spotting it so early.
It is highly unlikely to correct itself at the moment & if he doesn't wear glasses the more long sighted eye may well become lazy (amblyopic). It may already have worse vision than the better eye.
Up until the age of 7/8 is the best chance to improve the vision in the weaker eye.
Wearing the glasses means the visual part of the brain responding to the weak eye will start to receive clear images instead of blurry ones & this will improve the vision over time.

His vision may seem excellent overall as the good eye is probably very good.
It is worth trying to improve the weak eye now to improve binocular vision & always best to have 2 good eyes in case of injury /disease in the future.
Hope that helps.

if he doesnt wear the glasses then his eyesight could get worse and he could develop a proper squint. If the eyesight itself is poorer in one eye then the brain can shut down signals from that eye and then the sight would get worse and worse (this is what patching would try to fix if it got to that stage)

My dd had glasses from 18 months as she was long sighted in both eyes. She developed a squint as one eye had poorer sight than the other so she also had patching treatment. She still wear glasses (and always will) at age 10.

It is good that this has been picked up early and wearing glasses will not make his eyesight worse.

p.s. you may think that he has good eyesight but the good eye will be doing a lot of overcompensating for the bad eye - glasses will help him focus properly and get better signals from both eyes.