Ambyopia Eye Patches for Kids Tutorial

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.

What is Amblyopia?

Medical News Today explains:

“Lazy eye is also known as Amblyopia. Lazy eye is an early childhood condition where a child’s eyesight in one eye does not develop as it should. The problem is usually in just one eye, but can sometimes affect both of them.

When a patient has amblyopia the brain focuses on one eye more than the other, virtually ignoring the lazy eye. If that eye is not stimulated properly the visual brain cells do not mature normally. In the USA and UK amblyopia affects approximately 2% to 3% of all children. It is the most common cause of partial or total blindness in one eye (monocular blindness) in the USA.”

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…

Make Eye Patches for Kids

Kids Eye Patch Materials:

• 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

Kids Eye Patch Tutorial:

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 you have or know a child that wears eye patches?  Do you have any tricks for making glasses or patches easier for kids?

Do you have any clever parenting tips or fun kids’ activities? I’d love to share them with my readers. Just contact me for more information!

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