This question was posted a few months ago on the facebook group by Leah. I forwarded the question on to Danielle Crull, a master optician who specializes in children’s glasses. Here’s the original question, and Miss Danielle’s answer. -Ann Z
Question:
Does anyone have difficulty with a flat nasal bridge? Nolan’s glasses sit too low because he has a depressed nasal bridge, and he looks over the top of his glasses a lot. He has amblyopia and we’re trying to avoid patching, but since he almost always looks OVER the lenses, I doubt the glasses are doing much good! Any suggestions??
Nolan's glasses slipping down his nose
Answer from Danielle:
“I definitely understand a parent’s frustration with glasses slipping down on children with flat bridges. In fact, most kids don’t have much of a bridge at all. First of all, it’s important to know that in a properly fitted pair of glasses the nose holds about 90% of the weight of the glasses. The other 10% is distributed behind both of the ears. So when your child has a very flat bridge or very small bridge, we need to make sure that the ears have the right size temples fit behind them. To help with that, you can have your child fit with comfort cables. The comfort cable will carry more weight of the frame behind the ear and then distribute it evenly around the entire ear, keeping your child from getting marks behind his ears. Frames that have two seperate nose pieces give the best possibility of fitting well on a flat nose bridge. It is also important that those nose pads stay in adjustment or the glasses will begin to slip down. That means you may need to get more frequent adjustments! Again the comfort cables will hold the gap when the nose pieces get bent out, minimizing the slipping.
What I’m trying to say is that it may not be the way the bridge fits as much as it is how the temples fit. Parent’s should make sure that both the temples and bridge are fit properly and don’t be afraid to go back in when your child get’s their glasses a little askew :)”
. . .
Leah sent a follow up note to say: “We found that her advice is perfect – we have cable arms and they are snug enough to help with the ‘slippage.’ He also has the saddle-nose bridge piece. We had to get wire frames to fit alongside the hearing aids, but everything is fitting together very well now!”
For Little Eyes 
Great information, thank you Danielle. We need an expert like you in Australia! Another question for you. What about transition lenses? Are they good? Does anyone have any experience with them? My daughter paris is very sensitive to bright light and closes one eye constantly outside. She is shortsighted in her left eye only (-4/-2), plano in the other and has intermittent exotropia and this is the eye she shuts. I am thinking of getting transition lenses to cut out having to change glasses every time we go outside. Particularly as she gets older and will start school in a years time. Many thanks, Ingrid.
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Also has anyone heard of the brand Lindberg eye wear – a Danish company. Have a look at their website, amazing glasses for kids! However when I checked the price of them here in Australia they are $700 just for the frames and $300 for the thin lenses we need. Ouch. Has anyone had these lenses? Apparantly they are indistructable and have three year waranty and the rep said they are beautiful and weightless on kids faces. They company markets them as “allowing the childs face to be the feature and not the glasses”. They are very subtle. I love the look of them. What do you think?
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I’ve only just heard of them, but really don’t know much about them. The frames really are very cute, but man, $700?!? That’s steep. A 3 year warranty is great, except that I know Zoe will outgrow any glasses before 3 years. Maybe in a few more years when her head doesn’t grow as fast, she’ll have glasses that last that long, and then it might make more sense.
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I agree Ann, I would love to order a pair but I can’t justify that sort of money! It is a shame they make them so unaffordable. How on earth could they cost that much to make? The mark up must be unbelievable on them. We have a friend who is a glasses rep and he said generally the mark up on frames and lenses generally is astounding! I can’t see too many parents of young children forking out that sort of money for a pair of frames. As I said the thing that really appealed to me was the fact that apparantly you can hardly feel them at all on your face and they are designed to be very minimalist.
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My issue with slipping glasses is that my 26mo old son chews on the rubber nosepads on his metal frames. I’ve lost count on how many times we’ve had them replaced. Nothing seems to work. The tech at the doctor says that he’s going to have to start charging me for them since we’ve cost them a small fortune. I’ve tried soaking them in vinegar so he doesn’t like the taste and we’ve given him other things to chew on. Nothing has worked. Any suggestions.
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