How to convince your toddler to wear an eye patch

Our daughter was diagnosed with strabismus at 21 months old. We started noticing her left eye turning in when she was 18 months old. When I spoke to her pediatrician he eventually referred us to a pediatric eye specialist. The eye specialist had no experience with children as young as our daughter, although had difficulty admitting so. After the initial visit, our daughter was prescribed glasses and an eye patch to be worn full-time for two weeks.

I would like to mention right now that most pediatric eye specialists would never recommend full-time eye patching for two weeks or at all. Studies have shown too much eye patching can cause the patched eye to stop receiving information and therefore lose the sight for that eye. We were lucky that did not happen in our situation.  Eventually we were referred to another pediatric eye specialist that is an expert in her field and has worked with many children my daughter's age. Most patching is done in a series of 1-4 hour periods daily over a long period of time. This helps the eyes slowly adjust to the weaker eye doing more work.

So how did we convince our sweet, strong-willed toddler to wear her patch?

We made it part fun, part not a choice.  One, the patch was not called a patch in our house, it was a sticker. She had already fallen in love with stickers at this point, so to be told that she gets to wear a sticker on her eye was exciting! There was never an option not to wear the patch. The initial doctor told us to make her sleep with it on, so the only time she did not wear it was in the bath. Our daughter never fought us on it and wore the patch easily.

There is a chance we may have to patch her eyes again for further vision therapy. I intend on approaching this patching similar to the last time. There are some funky patches out there to help convince your child that  wearing the patch is cool. One company,  Fresnel Prism & Lens Co. LLC offer a lot of fun and funky styles to ease the discomfort. I talked a lot to our daughter about the therapy so she felt she was in the loop. We also made it into a special thing, since obviously she was unique from others at that time. She was our Princess Pirate, and that she really enjoyed being called.

My tips are simplistic but work:

1. Make wearing an eye patch fun.
   
2. Fun, funky styles that your child can help pick out!
   
3. If you approach the idea with dread your child will pick up on that. Remain positive!
4. Ultimately your child's sight is at risk, it is not optional to wear the patch.
5. Find a way to make your child feel special everyday, not just when they have to wear a patch!

Our daughter now wear glasses full-time, and I will share our toddler eye-glasses tips in another article!