Keeping Little Specs On

It's been just over four months since Emily started wearing glasses (it feels like far longer). And in these few short months we have tried out several little accessories to help her little specs stay put. She'd look down and her glasses would slip down her nose until they're at the tip in what she calls her "granny look." It's actually really funny, but that's not the point.

One thing I promised myself when she first got glasses was that I didn't want them to hold her back from being a child. Meaning that, amongst other things, I wanted her to be able to play in a playground as she had done before glasses. We needed to find a way to make her glasses stay put.

We trawled opticians in Malta at the time, but no one had anything more than those awful loose strings that simply turn a pair of glasses into a necklace, or thick sports bands that only came in adult sizes. So we moved the search online... David came across Speccles, and I came across Stay Puts. I ordered both to try them out and see what worked best.

[image via babyology]

Speccles are clear, bendy plastic pipes which fit snugly onto the arms of a pair of glasses. They are as secure as it gets. Emily can do anything when she's got her Speccles on. They are slightly tricky for a child to remove, thus ensuring glasses don't get taken off (handy if you have a child who keeps trying to remove their glasses). We had no such problem but Speccles were our accessory of choice when Emily was at school simply because it meant it was more difficult for other children to remove her glasses.

[image via eyepowerkidswear]

Stay Puts are silicone hooks that are slipped onto the arms of a pair of glasses to keep them from slipping back and forth along the ear. They do an excellent job - even in the playground, Emily's glasses are always safely in place. They give the child freedom to remove their glasses if need be. Emily uses these most of the time because it means she doesn't need us to help her remove or put on her glasses, and it's generally less faff.

She'll be back in her Speccles once she starts school again in September though!


We have also begun patching. Her sight has responded to her lenses very well and she has improved significantly (I can count the amount of times I've caught her eye turning on one hand since New Year), but one eye has responded slightly better than the other. So we are now patching for half an hour every day.

Our optometrist didn't specify whether he wanted her in adhesive patches or not, as I hear some do. But finding patches is quite a bit harder than I'd ever have thought! We moved to Dubai four days after we were told to start patching so we were in a new place, trying to work out where we might find some. The only place we had any luck was at a pharmacy, where we bought plain brown adhesive patches. I promised Emily I'd buy her some fancy ones online, but in the meantime we'd use these regular adhesive ones.

We stopped patching less than a week later. Removing those patches hurt her so much, we couldn't bear to put her through it again for the sake of half an hour. I ordered the online patches and decided to wait until we had those (not quite knowing when that would be as Dubai post isn't hugely reliable).

They made it eventually and we picked up where we left off. I explained to Emily why we are patching and she was cooperative. She's even been out on her bike with a patch on!

We bought our patches from Kay Fun Patch, and are extremely pleased with them. Emily picked out the patterns she wanted herself (sparkly pink skull and crossbones, and a ballerina print one) and chooses which patch to use on a daily basis. They're good quality, reusable, and were worth the money.

Emily's new pair of glasses have transition lenses, so they "magically" become sunglasses when she's in the sun.

And what do you know... Bunny's got glasses too! (also via Kay Fun Patch)

As an aside, we have also tried Kay Fun Patch's Wedgees, which I do not recommend. After using Stay Puts, they seemed like the amateur little sister, didn't fit onto Emily's glasses very well, and were uncomfortable. Five minutes after trying them on, her Stay Puts were back on!

Bespectacled

Over the last month or so, we (well, it was mainly David) noticed that Emily's right eye was starting to turn in towards her nose (the Maltese "titlef ghajnejha"). We dismissed it at first and put it down to tiredness. She was after all getting very tired recently. We even reintroduced naptime after it had completely stopped in October. 

Then slowly we realised that the eye was turning more and more often. Yes, mostly when she was tired - but this was becoming more often too. We also realised that she was acting different. Angry, almost. There were tantrums (very unlike Emily), and lots of attitude. 

We decided to face up to it ASAP and made an appointment with an ophthalmologist. We prepared Emily for this appointment with the "eye doctor" and she was excited. When we got there, she froze and wouldn't cooperate - or so it seemed. She'd be shown a picture of a flower and say i was a boat, etc. The ophthalmologist checked her eyes, said there was nothing wrong with them, advised that we work on Emily's concentration, and dismissed us. 

We were his last appointment that day. He was out of the clinic before we had even paid for our visit. Something wasn't sitting well with us. He'd treated us like the village idiots. And anyone who knows Emily well will also know that she has an incredible attention span. It just didn't add up, but we didn't want to be the paranoid parents, so we made ourselves feel happy about it and tried to leave it at that.

It lasted a weekend. The turn was getting even worse, and Emily was covering her right eye to watch TV. When asked, she'd say she saw better that way. 

We turned to a friend with contacts in the field and made an emergency appointment with a renowned ophthalmologist. 

Within moments of looking at Emily, he said yes there is an issue. Relief mixed with fear rushed through me at that moment. I didn't want anything to be wrong, of course - and I wish nothing was, but I knew something was off, and didn't want to have to keep hopping from doctor to doctor to get to the bottom of it.

This doctor was patient and helpful. His attitude with Emily completely different and it showed - she responded immediately. She read him the letters this time, not pictures (!) and he was impressed with how cooperative she was. She sat on my lap through the appointment, in full concentration, and when the letters became too hard for her to read, she sunk into me and said "I'm sorry Mummy, I don't know it" My heart hurt for her, there was nothing to be sorry about, I said. This is why we came to the eye doctor. 

It turns out she's extremely far-sighted. She'd need a +5 strength lens but her brand new (pink, of course) specs are a +3.5 for now, to be reviewed in February. On hearing she'd need glasses, I excitedly told her she'd be like her Nannus now. Very exciting to wear specs. She bought it.

Those were the facts. But behind it all, David and I were finding it very difficult to swallow. Our perfect little girl didn't feel quite as perfect any longer. It hurt on a level we couldn't quite understand. I blamed myself for her inheriting what is probably my poor eyesight, and for not noticing it earlier. We could barely look at her in her specs. I kept up the positive act when she was around, then she napped and I was in floods of tears.

I happened across a "support group" on Facebook, which was a lucky find - seeing so many pictures of littles in glasses (and some with far more complex situations than ours) somehow made it a bit easier to face. 

As they promised me would happen, a few days on, Emily's glasses are already so much a part of her, it is becoming a little bit strange to see her without them. And I'm happy to report she's still my perfect little girl. 

As for her, she initially didn't want to wear them. I began preparing myself for a battle of wills. Then, within half an hour of us getting back home, I overheard her mutter to Adam "Wow, I can see you much better now!" and that was the end of the battle. She now takes them off to change her clothes, or bathe, or other sensible reasons - and goes right back to put them back on. 

And within half a day, the attitude had melted away and the tantrums ended. She became the happy, laughing child I knew her to be. Again, I felt a stab of regret to know how frustrated she must have been all that time and we never clocked it - but we did eventually, and it's still well in time to help her, and that's what counts.