little four eyes

Jack's injuries from his fall on his glasses.

Carolyn sent in a story about her son, Jack, who is 2 1/2 and wears Miraflex glasses for farsightedness.  He had been playing with his little sister, when he fell off his bed in just the right way that his lens popped out and pushed under his eyebrow.  The resulting cut from the lens required 6 stitches to close up.  As Carolyn wrote, they’re very thankful for the Miraflex glasses, as other frames could have broken and made the injury even worse.

Ann Felicia also wrote about her son getting a cut on his face from his glasses a couple of years ago.

This is definitely something to keep in mind when you’re looking for glasses for your child.  Think about how the frames and the lenses will handle falls or accidents.  The lens material is extremely important, and for this reason, polycarbonate is generally recommended for children since it is very hard and shatter proof.

Bennett in his prescription sports goggles from http://www.zleader.com/jamn.htm

Another thing to consider is sports goggles, especially if your child is participating in sports that are rough or could cause injuries to their eyes.  Accidents will happen, and we can’t always prepare for everything, but given how much we’re trying to take care of their vision, it makes sense to also be sure we’re protecting them from injuries.

I’m terribly sorry for falling so far behind on the photo gallery updates.  I’ve just added 7 new photos (of 8 beautiful children in glasses) to the page.  If you have sent me a picture of your child and I missed it, please re-send it (ann@shinypebble.com), and I will add it.   Check out the new pictures!

If you are looking for a way to strengthen hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills, take time this weekend to do some beading with your child!  I started beading with LARGE wooden beads when Elly was 2 and she has slowly worked her way up to pony bead size.  It takes a lot of concentration and she can only work for short periods of time (5-6 min) before needing a break – but she is now able to make a bracelet on her own – YEAH!!!!  Noodles on pipe cleaners or shoe laces are an inexpensive alternative if you don’t have beads at home!

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

.

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!

Last month, we got the… “I am very sorry, but we will most likely need to have Elliana go back for another surgery.”  Her eyes were turning in.  We were doing everything that traditionally helps and it was only making the turn in worse.  I was not at all prepared for that.   So, they put her back in her full strength perscription and stopped patching.

Well, 2 weeks later, her eyes had shown significant improvement.  Go figure.  We were all impressed.  With a slight turn in of the right eye, we agreed to patch every other day for a couple hours so that her eyes would be given plenty of opportunity to practice teaming, since they are not working very well together.

Then, one day, this…

Did you see the eye turn?  Not sure where it came from, but it is back and doesn’t look like it is getting better. We stopped patching and dropped the lenses back a bit, but it is only getting worse.  I am feeling SUPER BUMMED.

We haven’t had an open thread in a while.

Some kids use glasses as teethers, some hide or break them, some fight patching tooth and nail, and some of us struggle with the changes that glasses and vision problems can mean for our children, or with rude comments from strangers.  What are the biggest struggles you’ve dealt with in having a child in glasses (or contacts, or patching, or other vision problems)?

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?

Jennifer had a question in the comments that’s something I’ve been thinking about recently, too.  She wondered whether it was better, if your child already has 2 pair of glasses, to have one pair as the primary pair, and one set aside as a backup.  Or does it make more sense to have both pairs as primary pairs, and let your child choose each morning which pair to wear?

For the past 18 months, Zoe has had two pair of glasses, and we’ve let her choose which pair to wear.  It’s worked quite well, largely because she seems to like both pair equally, so they get pretty equal wear and tear.  The lenses are less scratched, and the frames less beat up, because they’re both essentially getting  worn half the time.

That all changed last week when we found out Zoe’s prescription had changed.  I had planned to get the lenses replaced in one pair, and then when that pair was back, get new lenses for the second pair.  The guy at the optical shop, though, told me that she was likely to outgrow her red glasses in around 6 months, and he didn’t think it would make sense to replace her lenses now, only to need to replace the frames and lenses again in a few months.  So once her blue glasses come back with the updated prescription, we’ll have those as her primary glasses, with the red ones as back-up — the prescription change is small enough that the old prescription could be worn as a back up if need be.

I’d love to pick out a second pair of glasses for Zoe so that we can stay with the two pairs for her to choose from, since it’s worked so well.  But ordering new lenses for one pair, and then a second whole new pair of glasses just isn’t in the cards for us right now.  I guess I hadn’t really thought through the logistics of what happens with two pair when the prescription changes, but the frames don’t need to.

I’d love to hear thoughts on what you all are doing.  Do you have a back up pair, or two pair that your child chooses from?  Is it working well?  What would you do if the money for additional pairs were not an issue (hey, I can dream, right?)

How to tell Zoe just got out of an eye appointment?  Sunglasses and lots and lots of stickers.  The eye doctor’s office has a ready supply of both.

You would think that after doing this, oh I don’t even know how many times, I would remember that Zoe will have her eyes dilated and that means I should bring her sunglasses, especially in the summer, but I forgot, and so Zoe got herself a new pair of tiger striped shades (they’re not prescription, obviously, so she probably won’t wear them much).

Speaking of sunglasses, now that it’s midsummer in the northern hemisphere, I wanted to remind everyone of the importance of wearing sunglasses.  If you’re not sure what to do for sunglasses for your child, you might want to check out our post from last year where we pulled together a number of different sunglasses options.

Sukanya posted on the facebook group about the difficulties in keeping her son’s glasses clean.  It made me laugh, only because we’ve had the exact same frustrations throughout the 2 1/2 years that Zoe’s worn her glasses.  I feel like every time I’ve looked at her glasses, they’ve been cloudy or dirty or covered in yogurt.

shortly after this picture was taken, the glasses were completely covered in yogurt. I was laughing too hard to get the picture

Sometimes I feel like they get dirty sitting on her bedside table at night.

Zoe definitely likes “cleaning” her glasses, and is almost getting good at it, though they still aren’t clean after she goes after them with her cleaning cloth.  She’s good at handing them to us and asking us to clean them, and we send a cleaning cloth to daycare, too.  Any other ideas of ways to keep the glasses clean?  Do you find yourself cleaning your child’s glasses all the time?  Have you taught them to clean their own glasses?