DIY Mama: Kids Amblyopia Eye Patch

One of the unfortunate things that my oldest kids have inherited from both their father and I is poor vision.  Amblyopia, or lazy eye, to be exact.  While Sawyer has been wearing glasses since he was 18 months old, his amblyopia has just now progressed to the point where he needs to wear an eye patch.  He needs to wear a patch over his stronger eye for 2 hours per day to give his weaker eye some practice and exercise.
I remember HATING my black plastic eye when I was his age.  My mom would put it on me before putting me on the bus in the morning.  And I would take it off as soon as she was out of sight!  (Could be why my amblyopia is so terrible now.)  So I set out on a mission to make a patch that Sawyer wouldn’t mind wearing quite so much.  And this is what I came up with and how you can make your own…

DIY Kids Amblyopia Eye Patch

 

What you’ll need:

• Paper and marker for making the template
• Fabric of your child’s choice (with a small print)
• Felt
• Thread
• Sewing machine or needle for hand-sewing

1. Place a piece of paper under your child’s glasses and trace a rough shape around the glasses for your eye patch.



2. Cut the shape out of the paper to use as your template.  Use it as a template (by pinning it down and cutting around it) to cut out two pieces from the felt and one piece from the fabric.

3. Trim the fabric piece just a tiny bit around all edges so that it is slightly smaller than the felt pieces.



4. Place the fabric piece wrong side down onto one felt piece.  Using a tight zigzag stitch (or a blanket stitch if sewing by hand), stitch along all edges.



5. Fold the sewn piece as shown above and use a straight stitch to sew across each corner (where the white lines are in the photo).  Repeat this on the other felt piece.  This will create the slight bend in the patch.



6. Place the fabric/felt piece, corner stitched side down onto the plain felt piece corner stitched side up.  So that the corner stitched sides are both inside the “felt sandwich.”

7. Use a straight stitch to sew the top and the bottom of the pieces together leaving an opening around the side of the curve and the small straight edge for the glasses to slide through.



Does this look like a kid that has any confidence issue because of his eye patch?  NOPE!

Do your little ones wear glasses?  Have they ever had to use a patch?  Do you have any tricks for making glasses or patches easier for kids?



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