As we approach the fifth anniversary of Little Four Eyes, I’ve been thinking back through our own 5 year journey of Zoe in glasses. I know when I was starting out, I wanted to know what to expect and fervently hoped it got better (it did). Obviously, every kid is different, so I’d love to hear how things have changed year to year from other veterans out there.
Year 1: Mixed emotions and a steep learning curve
Our first year was was definitely the hardest. There were the crazy emotions when we learned Zoe would need glasses: surprise that she needed glasses; worry that I wouldn’t be able to keep them on her; anger at myself for being upset; bewilderment at the idea of getting my strong-willed toddler to leave glasses on her face; frustration with her taking the darn things off all the time; excitement as I watched her wear them better and begin to see well; irritation at the question after question and comment after comment about her glasses; disappointment at seeing her eyes continue to cross even as we tried prescription after prescription; worry about whether surgery was right; joy at seeing her look at me with both eyes at the same time.
Lessons learned:
- consistency, staying positive, and distractions are key to getting a child to wear her glasses. But even then, it can take kids a long time before they’ll wear their glasses. But it will eventually happen.
- take off her glasses in the car. She would get bored and the glasses would get bent or the nose piece would come off. Eventually she got much better at leaving her glasses on on the car, but that took a while.
- watch her glasses when she’s in the stroller. We took a lovely walk one afternoon and upon arriving home, saw that she had no glasses any more. Thank goodness they were bright red and my husband was able to spot them when he retraced our steps
- keep many microfiber cloths around for clean up. Because those glasses? Get dirty fast!
- be ready to answer questions. A young toddler in glasses inspires lots of questions and comments. I got really good at answering how they can measure a toddlers vision. I also learned to ask people if they really wanted to know the answer, because I saw a lot of eyes glaze over as I talked through the multiple tests that occur at a typical eye exam for child.
Stats:
- Number of eye appointments: at least 10
- Number of prescriptions: 4
- Number of frames: 1
Year 2: settling in
After the craziness of the first year, the next couple of years felt much easier. Her prescription stabilized and we moved to appointments every 6 months. I started to feel like a pro: Zoe wore her glasses well and reliably, I could answer any question a stranger threw my way about glasses, and I’d met a lot of great people through this site and no longer felt alone at all.
Lessons learned:
- Two pair of glasses is awesome. That way you have a back up, and I could give Zoe a choice every morning as to which glasses to wear. Now she had some control over wearing her glasses.
- After all those fights to get Zoe to leave her glasses on, we were all of a sudden having issues taking her glasses off. In her first year, I learned to take her glasses off to prevent her from flinging them off during tantrums, but this year, she started getting really upset by that. So we started a new rule in which I told her that someone should always ask her before taking her glasses off.
Stats:
- Number of eye appointments: 2
- Number of prescriptions: 1
- Number of frames: 2
Year 3: even better
Year 3 continued the trend of things getting better. Zoe’s two pair of glasses from the previous year still fit, and she was doing great. This was the age at which she first started asking questions about why some people wear glasses, and why none of her friends do.
Lessons learned:
- Books can help kids talk about their glasses
- Zoe warned me about the dangers that water buffalo pose to glasses.
Stats:
- Number of eye appointments: 2
- Number of prescriptions: same as the previous year
- Number of frames: same two as the previous year – she outgrew one halfway through this year
Year 4: changes
After 2 years of the same frames and no prescription changes, we had a bunch of changes. Zoe’s prescription jumped due to a change in astigmatism, and that triggered amblyopia and patching, and she’d outgrown her frames. So, new frames, new prescription, and patching.
Lessons learned:
- Patching is hard. Having a consistent schedule helped us a lot. As did sparkly eye patches that Zoe could choose each morning.
- Vision screenings don’t catch every problem. A month before Zoe’s appointment where we learned she needed to patch, she had her vision screened at her pediatrician’s office. I watched as she peeked around the eye cover, and crept past the line to try to read the eye chart. It was clear to me that she was not seeing well. But the nurse passed her on the screening. Thank goodness we had a real appointment already scheduled.
- One new sign of Zoe needing a new prescription is her looking sideways through the outside edge of her glasses.
Stats:
- Number of eye appointments: 4
- Number of prescriptions:1
- Number of frames: 3
Year 5: still the only one in glasses
This year, Zoe started kindergarten. I was certain she’d have at least one other kid in her class in glasses, or at least someone in her after school program. She’s still the only one, but she’s still smiling.
Lessons learned:
- Photochromic lenses (the ones that change in sunlight) are great, Zoe loves hers. They do not change back to clear very quickly when it’s cold out, though.
Stats:
- Number of eye appointments: 2
- Number of prescriptions: 1
- Number of frames: same ones as the previous year
Filed under: amblyopia (lazy eye), astigmatism, day in, day out, hyperopia (farsighted), kids with glasses, patching, strabismus (misaligned eyes), toddlers with glasses
