I tried ordering glasses online for Nolan, to save a little money and to get them quickly over the Christmas holidays. With his amblyopia, I want to make sure that we stay on top of prescription changes so that his right eye continues to improve.
Unfortunately, ordering online is really hard with kids. Most sites don't allow you to sort by specific frame size, and what an online site claims is a "small" frame is really a frame that might fit a ten year old. There aren't many frames for small preschoolers online.
I found some "Badger" frames at $39 Eyeglasses and bought them because they were one of the only pairs with a 120mm temple length. The glasses arrived and they were simply too big. The temples were much longer than 120mm (closer to 125mm) and they just didn't fit our little guy's face. This isn't really the fault of the online retailer - small preschoolers can be hard to fit.
I called our local optician's shop the other day and went in to look for glasses that would fit Nolan. He's so small that only ONE pair fit his small face - a pair they had in a drawer underneath all the display glasses. He almost wears an infant sized frame. His new glasses (a Disney frame, with tiny gold Mickey Mouse emblems on the temples) will be ready in a week or two.
We also found that his PD (pupilary distance) had changed in the past six months - not a huge change, but it went from 50mm to 51mm. Getting a proper PD measurement is critical to fitting glasses, so I'm glad I took him in. I tried measuring it myself, but if you have ever tried to do this with a four year old child, you know it is impossible.
In the meantime, the optician adjusted Nolan's online eyeglasses to help them fit better. They're staying up much better since the adjustment. They're still slightly too big (you can see how the lenses are a bit too wide for his face), but at least he's looking through the lenses again.
I learned my lesson - I won't buy online again (for Nolan) unless it is just for sunglasses. In the meantime, we're very grateful that our local optician bent the temples around his ears and fixed the nose pad to keep his current glasses on his face!
7 comments:
Kevin purchased new lenses online and had great success. It required sending the frames to the provider though. Saved money but he was without his spare pair for about 4 weeks. Could be an option for you though once you have a few frames that work for Nolan - send an old frame for a new prescription?
We get KayTar's glasses online, but we've had at least one pair come that were too large for her face. We stuck with the toddler frames from the optician for a few years, but now that she is bigger we are having good success with the online frames from Zenni. It can be hit or miss, though, especially with little faces!
Kevin got his specs through SelectSpecs ( http://www.selectspecs.com/lens-replacement/ ) He sent his frames to New York which were then shipped to the UK but perhaps yours would stay in country? Kevin recommends sending them in a hard case b/c his got a bit scrunched on the way home... Hope it helps! : )
We'll probably stick with the optician until Nolan gets a bit bigger (the frames that were sent to us were supposed to be a certain size, but were obviously bigger than the label). Still, the SelectSpecs replacement thing sounds like a wonderful idea - we could just replace the lenses and keep the frames. Thanks for the heads-up on that service!!!
That IS a good idea, but might work better for adult, who aren't as hard on the frames as kids. Might be he wears the frames out before the lenses.
But, in the mean time, HE IS SO ADORABLE!
He looks absolutely adorable !! Its difficult dealing with things delivered over the net. I find it difficult to still order things on the net.
Drezden has been wearing glasses since he was four months old. Finding them tiny is challenging to say the least. He's four now, and has been able to wear WalMart glasses since last year just before he turned three. They are cheap, always repaired or replaced free for twelve months, and arrive pretty quickly. Finding glasses to fit tiny kiddos is always a challenge.
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