When KW2 was 18 months we went on a eurocamp holiday to the Vendee,when feeding himself some finger food, I noticed his eye seemed to turn inwards. This happened a few times over the course of the holiday, and when I looked back at the pictures there were several photos where he looked a little ‘squiffy eyed’

As soon as we got back I arranged an appointment with the doctors, as when I did a google search on ‘eyes turning in’, it came back with glasses or a brain tumour… The doctor could also see the turn a little, so referred us to the optometrist at the hospital, an 8 week wait. Well,with me being a worrier, I couldn’t possibly wait 8 weeks with those worries hanging over us, so I booked him into our local opticians, where there is a optometrist who specialises in children. The eye test was fascinating to watch with an 18 month old, he was not over happy about it but sat reasonably well, although he hated the drops used to dilate the pupils!  When Wendy diddams, told us he was probably a +7, +8 with astigmatism too, we couldn’t believe it. He is so long sighted and we had no idea whatsoever!

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and looking back there may well have been clues to his vision problems much earlier on. He had a limited attention span with books and had no interest in his sister’s television programmes at all, and he had also been very slow to master stairs. He slept very well and I had never had to make an effort to get him in a napping routine, as he had long regular naps and would even ask to go to bed. Seems his eyes must have been so tired from straining and trying to focus.

On that initial diagnosis, so much goes through your mind and we were understandably gutted (although very relieved it was is eyes not his brain). I was so upset that he might not have been able see my face properly, how different did the world look to him?  Would he still look like my adorable cute boy, or would he look comical? Would he keep them on? Would the transition to glasses be traumatic for him? I know glasses is so minor compared to health worries children and parents have, but I  was concerned nonetheless. Everybody want their children to be perfect, and knowing he had hurdles he would have to tackle so early in his life was upsetting.

The day he got his glasses, was the day he never took them off. He put them on and that was that, we are lucky in that they clearly made such a difference to his sight, he never had the urge to take them off. Two and a half years on and he has still never broken a pair, his glasses have become a part of him and his personality, he now looks odd without them!

Actually, the main battle we had was with kiddiewink 1 who was gutted her brother was getting glasses, as she had wanted them for years. We couldn’t even appease her buy buying sunglasses, due to the fact she already had lots of pairs, luckily the opticians gave her a funky case which helped a bit. At her last test, she was told her eyes had got even better, her face fell and she was very sad! Now kiddiewink3 needs them, we are letting her help choose the girlie glasses and she is very excited. I suspect the next stage of our journey will be a bit bumpier than the transition for kiddiewink 2. Keeping glasses on a 7 month old, I imagine is rather tricky!