Lazy eye - I am a bit worried

[MaDuggar]

My DS (age 16 months & a prem baby) suddenly developed a very noticable squint/lazy eye overnight about 7 weeks ago. He literally woke up with it one morning & everyone commented on it. I took him to see the HV, who referred us to the eye clinic at the hospital, and I have an appt with them next month.

It runs in my family (myself, my siblings, my mum/uncle & grandad have all had it) so I know soemthing about it. But my concerns are mostly because of his age and the suddeness of it.

My worries are -

Is it more serious because it came on so suddenly? Sometimes it turns so far into his nose, half of his iris is covered!

How will I keep glasses & patches on a 16 month old? Isnt he young for such a pornounced squint? Has anyone elses with a DC this age been though it?

Im worried about how long I am waiting to see soemone. Can someone reassure me that his sight wont be lost while waiting? I sthere any problems associated with waiting for it to be looked at?

Id be very grateful for any shared experiences x

dd was diagnosed with a squint and lazy eye at about 18 months - I hadnt noticed it before then but when I look at earlier photos it was present in some of them. She was found to be long sighted and had to wear glasses (still has to and is nearly 6). She did do some patching too for quite a while but that has stopped now that the eyesight in her 'lazy' eye has improved. DD was great with her glasses and the patches. I used to buy stickers and let her decorate the patches before they were put on.

The eye develops up till the age of about 6/7 so your lo's eyes will have plenty of time to respond to treatment.

p.s. no-one else in my family wears glasses apart from my mum who is in her 60's so it was a bit of a shock for dd to have to get them so young but she looks strange without them now.

How did you honeslty get her to wear glasses? my mind boggles at the thought of DS wearing them he wont even wear a hat! and he is too young to reason with?

same thing happened to my dd, she was 18 months old, all of a sudden, one saturday morning her left eye had turned inwards. we had no idea until then that she had any eye problems at all. she is severely long sighted, and also has astigmatism. if he's seen at en eye clinic, they will do some general vision tests with each eye, and will work out what prescription he needs by putting drops in to dilate his eyes. dd had this done every year until she was discharged by the hospital when she was 6 and now goes to a normal optician.

her first glasses had curls behind the ears to keep them on. at first, she used to play with them a lot, broke quite a few pairs (everything is repaired for free), but pretty soon, she realised she couldn't actually see properly without them and just accepted that she needed them.