20/20

During our last Parents as Teachers meeting, our gal told us about a program that the state offers called InfantSee for kids under 1 year. The program helps establish a good foundation for healthy vision by checking to ensure the baby's eyes are healthy. Yesterday was his appointment.

We were interested to see how they would evaluate this eyes since Karsten couldn't tell us which option was better - 1 or 2, plus he couldn't read an eye chart!

Waiting patiently for the doctor to get started. Karsten was looking all around at all of the equipment.


The doctor was great with Karsten. He had done his residency at Children's Mercy so he had lots of tricks for working with kids.

After the doctor looked in his eyes, Karsten got a sticker for being so good.

He started to get more comfortable and wanted to touch all of the equipment.

The last step of the appointment was for the doctor to put in dialating eye drops so he could look into his eye and see if his eye was healthy. After his eyes were dialated, Karsten did NOT like it when the doctor shined the bright light into his eyes, he would cry and turn his head quickly away from the light. The doctor had a few tricks that allowed him to get a couple of quick peeks into his eyes.

When we left, Karsten actually kept his sunglasses on as we walked to the car. He typically pulls his sunglasses off immediately, but I think he realized they were helping him.



Overall, the doctor said that Karsten's eyes looked great. He could tell that Karsten (like all babies) is farsighted right now, and predicted that in the future he would be nearsighted (like both Scott and I). He said that he recommended we get his eyes checked again when it was time for him to start school.

He also shared an interesting tidbit that I had never heard - a child's eyes are mostly done developing by the age of seven. Eye doctors like to see children before the age of seven because they are able to make changes that will prevent long term damage to their vision (where applicable). He said that after the age of seven, it is much more difficult to fix eye problems. So there you go - take your lil one to the eye dr before he/she is seven.