I need help w/glasses-ideas!

[DocsNemesis]

My 3, almost 4 year old daughter got glasses today and she will NOT wear them. She hates them. My 6 year old isnt liking them too much either (she says they're blurry? I dunno) but at least she's wearing them.

I already figured I'd use a rewards system to keep them on both of them, but she just isnt going for it. However, when I asked if I got her something with Dora on it for them if she'd wear them, she got really excited. So I was thinking, I'll get a Dora retainer for them. That'd be perfect right?!

Wrong. I cant find a retainer with ANY kids characters on them. Soooo....we were thinking maybe we could get Dora shoelaces and make our own. But I have no idea how to do that. Any ideas? I dont want it to look horrible either, but if it gets her wearing them, I'm ok with almost anything!

If anyone knows of anything else that might work, please let me know. She NEEDS to wear these-for both of them, if they dont wear them, they'll end up needing surgery (6 year old has a lazy eye and 3 year old is developing one, they can both be corrected with glasses right now, but not as they get older apparently). TIA!

[olliepop]

No idea about the retainer, but when my dd got her glasses at 5, she was resistant and reading this book and a few other helped a bit.

http://www.amazon.com/Magenta-Gets-G...1847416&sr=8-1

I also got her a cute floral glasses case from Claire's. HTH Good luck.

[moaningminny]

My two-year-old would not keep hers on either. It turned out that her prescription was too strong. Once she got the correct prescription she wore them, no problem.

[Katwoman]

If you haven't already, I'd get both glasses checked to make sure their the correct prescription. Once I was given the "right" numbers, but they made the glasses nearsighted instead of farsighted. BIG difference. Also, my DD2 wouldn't keep her glasses on and it got down to the doc suggesting I use prescription medication on her. I had the glasses checked first and her eyes had changed and the prescription was too strong.

As for making a retainer, how about putting the material over elastic you find on the rolls at the fabric store?

[eepster]

I have strabismus (a form of lazy eye, where it turns out,) and had these glasses and the surgery as a child.

The glasses for lazy eye make it harder to see (I don't know why optometrist don't tell parents this up front.) They work by blurring the strong eye in hopes that the child will use the weak eye more and it will strengthen. You can imagine how unpleasant this is. Having grownups constantly tel you to wear your glass so you'll see better is really annoying, since the glasses actually make you see worse.

After all I went through with the glasses and surgery, I still have strabismus (I also have regular glasses to correct my nearsightedness which I wear happily since they actually do help me see better.) I simply use one eye for close up work, like reading, and the other for distance work, like looking through a camera's view finder. It works fine and I'm happy even though I don't have much depth perception unless I really concentrate on using both eyes. Actually the only thing that ever actually corrected my strabismus was smoking pot, but it wasn't a long term solution. My father also has a lazy eye and never had anything done to correct it, and it has never been an issue.

[A&A]

Double-check that she got the right prescription. They do mess these things up sometimes. My nephew's glasses came back with the opposite prescription. He wouldn't wear them. My sister figured out they were wrong and got him the right ones. Then he would wear them.

[DocsNemesis]

I didnt know that about the glasses. That definately helps.

I asked them both about it. My 6 year old says BOTH sides are blurry-shouldn't only one side be blurry? My 3 year old says only one side is blurry but...she's 3. So I cant really trust that she even understands what I'm asking, lol.

I'm going to call them later today and ask about it. I still have no idea how I'm going to get the 3 year old to wear them though-whether they are right or not, getting her to wear glasses where one side is blurry doesnt seem like something that'll happen. She's very stubborn/opinionated and if it annoys her, it wont happen. Blarg. And of course the docs all just say well make her. I cant MAKE her, short of duct taping them on-and I dont want to do that. I mean, they said they will both need glasses permanently (in a normal prescription), so I really dont want some negative association with wearing glasses. That would just mean years of trouble and resentment. Ugh.

[moaningminny]

Good luck, it's frustrating, isn't it?

My daughter had bilateral strabismus (esotropia, where her eyes turned inward) but fortunately doesn't have a lazy eye (amblyopia). She ended up having her strabismus surgically repaired, and at this point no longer needs glasses but her ophthalmologist figures she's going to end up near-sighted so then we'll be back to glasses again. She'll be much older by that time so I'm hoping it won't be an issue to get her to wear them.