About Kids Eye Gear
Kids Eye Gear is all about trying to make wearing patches and glasses fun! Founded in 2013, we are excited to offer a range of practical and colourful visionwear for kids. Adhesive eye patches, fabric eye patches, SpecStoppers ear hooks, and glasses holders are just some of the items we provide.
Kids Eye Gear is based on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia and is a proud Australian-owned family business.
I’m Nicola, the Founder of Kids Eye Gear.
In 2010, my husband and I were left reeling with the shock discover of a rare eye condition at my six-month-old son’s regular GP check up. After surgery and negotiating a contact lens in our baby boy, the real struggle began – patching!
The frustrations of patching our baby, and then toddler, were immense. Accessibility of this vital but simple medical device was limited in Australia and large multi national companies that did distribute them made sure pricing for Australian families hurt the hip pocket.
I just knew there had to be a better way.
"Kids Eye Gear was created after our son started patching due to a congenital cataract and subsequent surgery. We wanted to make fun, colourful and practical patches available for other patching families in Australia and now all over the world."
Kids Eye Gear started when one large carton of brightly coloured eye patches arrived on my doorstep. That carton lasted three weeks.
Eight years later, Kids Eye Gear is now the home of fun and colourful optical accessories for children, as we try to make patching and wearing glasses fun.
I’m now dedicated to not only providing amazing products that will help children’s vision but also providing information, education and support to eyecare professionals and parents.
I hope we can help your child on their patching and glasses wearing journey!
Let us help you on your journey to achieve great vision for your child.
Our Story
Our story began when our son, Dane, was six months old. A routine trip to the GP resulted in a heart wrenching discovery of ‘something’ in his eye. After an anxious 10 day wait before we could see an ophthalmologist, we received the news that Dane had a congenital cataract in one of his eyes. Faced with the options of letting him go blind or risking surgery followed by years of contact lenses and patching, we made the life changing decision to go ahead with the operation to remove his clouded lens.
Along with regular contact lens insertion and removal – no easy feat in a baby – Dane required many, many hours of patching. His ‘good’ eye was covered with a patch in order to make his ‘bad’ eye switch on and develop good vision. We couldn’t find great patches at an affordable price in Australia so decided to create our own – and so Kids Eye Gear was born.
Fast forward nine years and Dane is now a sports crazy little boy who excels at school and makes us laugh every day. There are certainly still challenges and managing little nuances with his eyesight but on the whole, Dane’s story is overwhelmingly positive. He has check-ups every six months but right now has 6/7.5 (20/25) vision in his ‘bad’ eye (on a good day he will sometimes get to 6/6) and no further complications. This was the absolute best case scenario that we could have hoped for and we are grateful every day.