4 year old with squint/crossed eye

[trandy04]

Hi there, My almost 5 year old daughter has been in reception at school since September and has developed a squint/cross eye that goes inwards. I took her straight into the opticians and she has now been referred to the hospital. The optician did say this was fairly common and she will probably need glasses or patching.
However the waiting time for an appointment is up to 3 months!! And i can't help but worry myself silly. Its much worse after school and at the end of a school week and tonight its barely uncrossed since coming home. I just wonder if there is much i can do in the mean time to help. My daughter sees two of everything when it crosses so must be hard on her too.

I think up to three months will be fine. A lot of the appointments we had were routine ones, so I guess they'd prioritise a new case where a dc can't focus at school. You could give them a ring and see if there are any cancellations maybe.

Mine was squinting because she was long sighted. She wears glasses now and will always need them. She goes cross eyed again if she takes them off so she always keeps a spare pair in her bookbag and has prescription swimming goggles. She even wears them in the bath.

It's just a bit of a shock at first, but it will be fine honestly.

Thank you for your replies, it seems everyone has had different experiences. Some think its urgent others think not! At the moment I'm under the impression that her vision is good in both eyes so it would then be glasses by reading all of your comments. Hopefully the appointment will come through soon.

I think 3 months is a very long time to deal with double vision.

You should get the appointment through soon. If its is more than a couple of weeks, I would take her back to get some glasses from the Optician. I'm a little surpirsed that hasn't happened already. They'll need to put some drops in, but its very straightforward to get an accurate prescription from a 5 year old.

babie is sort of right, the squint won't go by itself, but may be fully corrected when wearing glasses. It is also likely she will need patching too.

Thank you Karoleann, I will go back on Monday with my concerns. I think I may go to her gp too. Vision isnt for messing around with is it. Thank you again you've really helped.

Update: I took DD back to the optician who looked at prescribing glasses for the time being. She felt glasses would not help in her case. However test was not done using drops.Good news is appointment at the hospital is in two weeks.