little four eyes

Many thanks to our newest contributor, Nikki, for writing this – Ann Z

I just spent $1115.00 on lenses and frames for three members of our family and expect to buy our three-year-old’s first pair next month. We are not new to choosing from the long list of options when customizing glasses, though we had our own trials with differentiating which features and add-ons were important, cosmetic or just plain unnecessary.

First, ask questions. Go ahead and say that you need help deciding which options are important, the reasons for each and any cost or benefit.  Most opticians, optometrists, ophthalmologists, and even office staff want you to be genuinely happy with a very useful pair of glasses.  We often do this without our children present because it can take 30 minutes or so to make all your selections (even after deciding on frames) depending on how many pairs you’re buying.

Basics

We’ve learned poly-carbonate lenses are the way to go. These are also sometimes called Hi-index or safety glasses, and they are thinner than regular plastic. These are sometimes more expensive for adults, though usually no extra charge for people under 18 for the obvious safety reasons. They’re lighter weight, too, and they have built-in UV protection. Glass does resist scratching better, though. So, if you choose plastic, you’re gonna need coating.

Coatings

Scratch coating and anti-reflective/anti-glare are also worth it. Often, if you pay the charge for scratch-coating, your lenses can be replaced *for free* for up to one year. So, if you see even one scratch, take them in! Anti-glare is important for two reasons: 1) you seeing out and 2) others seeing in. First, anti-glare helps the glasses-wearer by reducing the ‘halo effect’ around lights. Second, with the coating, others see clearly through to your child’s (or your) beautiful eyes. This is especially nice in photos! Have you seen your reflection in someone else’s lenses? Anti-glare coating solves that, too.

Polarized and UV protection are most often associated with tinted glasses, aka sunglasses. We have chosen Transitions. (Photochromic is the generic term. There are many brands of this. Usually your office will offer just one. They all do the job!)  We love Transitions for several reasons. One is hyper-sensitive to light and these make a huge difference. It is also extremely difficult for a young child to be responsible for two pairs of glasses, and this eliminates the need. Their backup glasses are not Transitions, since they mostly sit in a drawer and are only to be used as a temporary replacement.

Extras

Some frames have wire arms or spring-hinges to build in some shock-absorbency. In my opinion, if you’re that active, get the sport glasses. We even have swim goggles that are prescription. (You gotta see the wall, right?) You can find these on-line at swim stores – as long as you know your prescription – and they are surprisingly inexpensive.

Service

Often, frames are under warranty for a year and almost every place will adjust and ‘tweak’ at no cost and as often as you need. Kids’ glasses can get bent just from running to you for a hug, so we are dropping by as often as once a week for adjustments.

Bottom Line

Our children are our top priority. Their vision and eye care top the list of health concerns. Few things are worn as often as glasses – think of the cost averaged over a year. Often, with all these options, my child’s glasses cost $300 or less. I have no stake in the eyewear industry, just in my kids.

Sources:

1. www.essilorjunior.com

2. The Seven Deadly Sins of Recommending Kids’ Lenses by Sharon Leonard, LDO, ABOC-AC, FCLSA

3. Victor Rosario, office manager
Coan Eye Care
Orlando, FL

For all you parents who lovingly patch your little ones.  Make these, give them away, but just don’t sell them!  These are inexpensive, light weight, covering, re-usable, and have a smooth texture.  They can be personalized to fit your child’s personality and the shape of their glasses. The idea came to me late one night from trying all the patches on the market and they have worked well for Elly and hopefully may work for you.  It was designed for those of you in Miraflex in mind – hopefully it will work!  It can and should be adapted to best fit your child’s needs and glasses.  I can make each patch in less than 3 minutes and could make at least 50 of them for less than $5.00.  If you can tie a knot and push a needle back and forth, you can make these!

Materials

craft foam, needle, thread, scissors, knife, tape, and the pattern

The following tutorial will demonstrate how to make a right left eye patch.

1. First cut out your foam pieces, add any extra fun pieces that you may want.  Remember, the more you add, the heavier your patch will be.  Linked here (Patch Pattern) is a pdf pattern of the main patch pieces.

2.  Assemble the pieces and hold them together with your fingers to make sure you are making your patch go the right way.  Sew your embellishments on to the rectangular section first.

3. Then, using a simple knot and a straight stitch, attach the rectangular piece to the main patch on the bottom.

4.  Fold the V in until the edges are touching and stitch through all 3 layers; top, front, and over the glasses pieces. (see, your stitches don’t have to be pretty!)

5.  Then place a square piece of tape on the triangular side.  This is to make the opening where the temples go through just a little sturdier.

6.  Using a knife or other sharp object, make a hole large enough for the temples to fit through.

And you are done =)    Well, with the patch part… here is how they go on the glasses.  I told Elliana that it was my job to put them on and off for the safety of the glasses.  These patches will fit snugly and I put them on slowly.  I made 2 patches and they each lasted me over a month when put on by a parent.

First slide the temples in between the main patch and the rectangular piece.  If you have cables, making sure the ends get in the smaller hole is a little tricky.  Those with Miraflex, I think you can take the band off.  If not, e-mail me and I will think of something.

Then pull through until the patch sits comfortably on the glasses.  I trimmed with my scissors around the nose piece so the patch sits inside of the plastic and a bit from the top so it rests comfortably on their forehead (thats why it is easier to make the pattern bigger and cut to fit).  If you have the regular nosepiece, then you could make a vertical slit for the nosepiece to fit into

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Last and not least, have your child try their glasses with the patch on.  Make sure it is not rubbing or irritating, trim with a scizzors to make it a perfect patch for your child.

Almost forgot… we learned the hard way… DON”T use red or dark pink like my pictures.  When they sweat the color comes off and turns the skin pink.  I would use light pink, blue, white, yellow and other light colors.  If you do make a patch, please send me a picture to post.  I have a couple more that we have been using daily – pictures of them to come later!

Nicole just posted this question on the facebook group, and I thought I would post  it here in hopes that someone else may have experience or thoughts for her.

I am about to embark on full time eye patching of my 2 year old son, to see if we can gain some improvement of vision in his left eye, this needs to be done 24/7 for one full week. We then have to go for an appointment to the opthamologist and hopefully will see some improvement, as his vision is declining rapidly in his left eye. Not looking forward to this, prior patching for short durations has resulted in tantrums, pulling patches off, wrecking glasses and refusing to open his eye that isn’t patched. Has anyone been through a similar process and have any tips?

After my last post about our latest trip to the glasses shop to get all of  Zoe’s glasses adjusted, Darlene left a comment asking for more information about my comment that Zoe’s blue glasses were leaving red marks on her nose.  She wondered if red marks were always an indication of a bad fit, and whether the marks were gone now that those frames have been adjusted.  I figured I’d write a new post, since knowing when to take Zoe’s glasses in to get them adjusted is something I still struggle with.

To answer Darlene’s questions, I turned to Danielle Cruss (who goes by Miss Danielle on her website).  She is a Master-Certified Optician, who specializes in fitting and dispensing glasses for children.  She has a website that’s chock full of great information on children’s glasses, A Child’s Eyes.  Her website is listed on my page of resources for parents, but it’s such a good website, I didn’t think it would hurt to bring it up again.

One of the pages on A Child’s Eyes focuses specifically on the importance of getting glasses to fit correctly for a child.  The last three paragraphs talk about signs that you should bring your child’s glasses in for adjustments.  Specifically, marks on the side of their faces, and marks on the backs of their ears.  Marks on the side of their faces need quick attention (adjustments or new frames) as they can indicate that the frames are interfering with your child’s normal head growth.

I also interviewed Miss Danielle a year ago, and asked her for more information about signs that you child’s glasses aren’t fitting correctly, and here’s what she said:

If you notice any of the following you should stop by and have your child’s glasses adjusted:

• glasses that slip down,
• marks on the nose that are uneven or not symmetrical on either side of the nose,
• marks on the nose that don’t go away after about 5 minutes,
• glasses that are crooked on their face,
• any marks behind the ears.
• For the younger ones, if you notice any behavior changes, i.e.: doesn’t want to wear them, picking at their ears or rubbing their eyes, and watery eyes. [I can absolutely validate this one!  A while back, I noticed Zoe all of a sudden stopped wearing her glasses.  Turns out they were really crooked, and really messing up her vision - Ann Z]

The full interview is here, and is also worth a read if you missed it the first time around.  Miss Danielle really shared a ton of fantastic information.  I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I’d forgotten that I’d asked her about this in the interview until I went back to re-read it tonight.

I can answer Darlene’s last question all by myself – this evening I checked Zoe’s nose after she’d worn her blue glasses all day.  There were slight indentations on her nose, but no more red marks.   Hooray!

There are benefits to being awake nursing a baby at 3:00 in the morning, one of which that I have time to think by myself (well, without a chatty 3 year old)  This is the patch that I came up the other night / morning.  It is light weight, covers 98% of all light, easy to make and inexpensive.   All you need is the pattern, some craft foam, scotch tape, a needle and thread.  Would anyone be interested if I made you a tutorial?

It has been a while since we have had to atropine drop.  Last week, the ophthalmologist had us use the drops in both eyes for 3 days to get the most accurate measurement that they could.  These days were a reminder of why we ended up switching back to patching.

So, you may ask, how in the world do you get the eye drops in.  Well, we line up all the babies who are also getting their eyes dropped (for pretend)  Then we practice on them, telling them it will hurt a little and praising them for holding still.  When I get to the end of the line (Elly)  I hop on, hold her arms down with my knees, pry her eyes open with my left hand and drop with my right.  This is all done swiftly and in less than a second all the screaming, huffing, puffing, kicking, thrashing, you name it, is over.  I then tell her how brave she was and life moves on.

She really hated her glasses for about a week and a half until the atropine wore off, was a bearcat in her disposition, and expressed her distaste in the drops.  The good news is that the reading was the most accurate so far and resulted in a prescription changed.

Yeah eye drops and yeah no more eye drops.

Have you ever heard of Ficklets? Not me. At least not until a few weeks ago when someone online introduced me to them. But they are cute and apparently make all the difference for some children who would rather not wear glasses at all.

We were thrown into the world of children’s glasses back around December when we found out our oldest (5yrs old) has Amblyopia. He has between now and when he turns 10 for his brain and eyes to work together to strengthen the focus in his left eye. If glasses don’t work, there is the patching technique. ( I did get ahead of myself by establishing another contact online who actually makes attractive patches for kids. She made one for Brendan which we are not using yet, but may start soon. I plan to introduce this product to the Opthamologists at Brendan’s next appointment this month). Watch for my review on this patch in the near future.

Back to the Ficklets. These are eyeglass charms in their own way and they aren’t expensive. Brendan picked out the pair of blue dogs but Ros at Ficklets sent him a set of soccer balls too, and he chooses to wear one of each. I will add, he’s been wearing these for weeks and they stay on great! In the short time he’s had his glasses (and he wears them almost 24/7) the frame is already bent and I found a small crack in one lens ( ughhh)- he’s a boy, what can I say?

All that to say, the Ficklets have hung on VERY well. They are attached by a small rubber band you twist around the eyeglass frame and wrap onto the ficklet. Only recently did one pop off and we just used our “backup” rubber band that came with the pack to replace the missing band. I’ve never worn braces myself but know others who have and these bands remind me of tiny brace bands.

If you have a child who must wear glasses and just WILL not do it, you should consider looking into Ficklets. Ficklets might just give them the boost they need to overcome their self-consciousness about wearing glasses. Click here to read what others are saying about the difference Ficklets made in their childrens’ lives. I especially like the flower-ficklets for little girls, but I don’t have one of those

We did receive our Ficklets free in exchange for providing a review of them on my blog. Ficklets has a variety of charms available so be sure to check them out! The Ficklet motto is…”Give four-eyes a fresh perspective.”

This review was done by me and previously posted at my blog HallofFameMoms.com.

Just today I ran across a couple of different cases of Nickelodeon characters wearing glasses or going to the eye doctor.  Maybe Nickoledeon is a big

First, Ann W sent me a link to the book  The Eye of the Fry Cook: A Story About Getting Glasses (Spongebob Squarepants).  It’s a Spongebob Squarepants story about needing and getting glasses.  Apparently, the reading level is for 9-12 year olds, but I know we’ve got some smart kids, and if your child loves Spongebob, it may be worth checking out.

I also happened to stumble across Nick Jr’s page on visiting the Eye Doctor.  It has:

Put the glasses on Uniqua from Nick Jr

• the Backyardigans stickers about glasses.
• printable put the glasses on the character game – like pin the tail on the donkey, but with less pinning, thankfully, who wants their child to think you have to pin their glasses on? (featuring Pablo, YeYe, Walden, and Uniqua – I have to admit, I don’t know who any of these characters are, Zoe could probably tell me, though).
• a set of printable pretend eye charts (with Dora, Yo Gabba Gabba, and Ni Hao, Kai-lan characters).
• a set of Blues Clues eye exam flash cards.

I love the stickers, and the put the glasses on game could be fun, especially if you threw a party to celebrate your child getting glasses.  The printable eye charts kind of bother me, because they really aren’t any kind of real eye chart (and they don’t claim to be), but it could be a nice way to introduce the concept of eye charts to your child if they’ve never done that before.  The eye exam flash cards go over some of the different things that happen at an eye exam.  I’m not sure how much Zoe would enjoy something like that, but again, it may be a nice way to explain what will happen to a child facing their first eye exam.

In any case, it’s nice to see Nickelodeon creating fun games and activities around glasses and eye exams.  I wish that some of the characters stayed in glasses, though.  As far as I can tell, the characters that are wearing glasses in these print outs don’t wear them on a regular basis.  Ah well.  I’ll take what I can get.

I felt like I kept running in to mentions of glasses straps the past couple of days.  First, Camille from Framehuggers (one of the highly rated patches that Amomofelly reviewed) tweeted that she had finished developing a head strap for infants and children and needs moms to test it out for free.  Update: Camille has enough moms currently for testing.  I’ll definitely update everyone when she has the strap ready to sell.

Then Leah left a comment in the photo gallery asking about using the band that came with her son’s Miraflex glasses.  How tight or loose should it be?  And where should the strap sit on a child’s head?

We’ve never used a strap to keep Zoe’s glasses up, but I know other people have had a lot of success with them.  How about you?  Do you use straps or bands to keep your child’s glasses up?  Any recommendations or tips or tricks?

My friend just sent me this link to print our own stickers.  I  like the idea of making them into iron-on transfers too.  They were bright colored, fun, and great for a little one in glasses, so I wanted to pass it along!

http://www.nickjr.com/printables/backyardigans-glasses-stickers.jhtml