Since my son was three months old we noticed that he had a slightly lazy eye. Occasionally his right eye would roll in when he was tracking something, it didn’t occur consistently but there would be days when we noticed it a lot and other days it didn’t appear to happen at all.
When he turned one we took him to an Optometrist, who in turn referred us to a pediatric Ophthalmologist. What we learned was that our son did not have a lazy eye, but that he was incredibly near sighted. They measure near-sightedness on a scale from 0 to -20 and our son’s vision fell at a -12. In essence, things were only clear to him when they we’re inches from his face.
My husband and I were both shocked to learn of his vision impairment, and questioned ourselves as to how we didn’t notice. The only indicator we identified was that he held books close to his face when reading, but as parents of an only child we didn’t realize this was out of the ordinary. Didn’t all kids get close to books?
We have had his glasses for five months now and it is obvious that the world has opened up to him. Initially he would only wear them for five minutes at a time, but during those five minutes you could tell he was absorbing everything. He would sit or stand very still and inspect everything.
When we reflect on what we call his ‘pre-glasses days’ it amazes us at how well he coped, it also makes us aware of how adaptable children are.