Gear Review: Babiators Sunglasses for Infants

They came! The coolest baby sunglasses ever! Babiators!

Have you heard of these things? Apparently if you watch the Ellen DeGeneres Show or keep up with what the children of celebrities are doing you have. Since I'm seriously out of touch these were new to me.

I bought them through My First Sunglasses Company. They had very good customer service and were selling these for less than other places. I highly recommend them.

Let's start off with the cons, because I like to end on a positive note:

CONS:

• They are pricey! I spent about $16 on these, including shipping, but normally they retail for $20.

• They are a little loose out of the box. My daughter is admittedly small, especially her head. But they state that they will fit infants from 6 months all the way to a 3 yr old toddler. Still they slip off my 16 month old's face very easily. You can fix this one of 2 ways: 1) buy a $5 glasses strap from the Walmart vision center, or 2) if you take a hair dryer to the arms of the sunglasses for 30 seconds to a minute you can bend and shape them to curl around your child's ears.

• They aren't easily available. I could only find these suckers online, and I HATE waiting for things to get shipped to me. I know, patience is a virtue... UPDATE: If you have a Buy Buy Baby you can find them there.

• Some one may steal your child because they look so dang cute in them. True story. Someone grabbed my daughter while she was wearing these. Um, no.

If you steal her I will shank you

PROS:

• The frames are made out of rubber, not plastic. Bend them, stretch them, sit on them and they just bounce back. Don't believe me? Watch this video

• The lenses have 100% UVA and UVB protection. Duh. They're sunglasses.

• No strap so they go on and off easy (it's a pro if you have a kid like mine)

• Impact and shatter resistant lenses

• They are guaranteed against breakage or loss for 1 year

Whaaaaaaaaaaat? You mean if my kid throws these in a canal and I can't retrieve them, Babiators will send me a new pair? Yep, that's exactly what I mean. If you register your sunglasses with them they will replace your kids sunglasses if broken OR lost!*

***Note: you must register the sunglasses within 30 days to qualify. The guarantee is limited to 1 replacement pair per customer and you are responsible for the shipping. If your replacement pair breaks within one year of the purchase date you are entitled to 1 additional replacement pair, but you would have to mail the damaged pair to them.

The Lost & Found Guarantee is limited to one (1) replacement pair per customer. Customers are required to pay the cost of shipping (from our location in the U.S.) for their replacement pair. Customers who register their purchases for shipping locations outside the U.S. may be required to claim their replacement through the Babiators distributor (if we have a distributor in that country), or pay for shipping costs from the U.S. to their country. Lost & Found Guarantee participation in countries where we have a distributor is solely at the discretion of that country's distributor, and participation varies. If the customer’s replacement pair breaks within one year of purchase, the customer is entitled to one (1) additional replacement pair. To claim this additional replacement, customer is required to mail the damaged pair to Babiators at: Babiators Returns, Attn: Lost & Found Guarantee, 1054 Grandview Road, Oil City, PA 16301-1227.  The Lost & Found Guarantee replaces the Wear & Tear Guarantee.   - See more at: http://www.babiators.com/terms#sthash.xO4JsVke.dpuf

The Lost & Found Guarantee is limited to one (1) replacement pair per customer. Customers are required to pay the cost of shipping (from our location in the U.S.) for their replacement pair. Customers who register their purchases for shipping locations outside the U.S. may be required to claim their replacement through the Babiators distributor (if we have a distributor in that country), or pay for shipping costs from the U.S. to their country. Lost & Found Guarantee participation in countries where we have a distributor is solely at the discretion of that country's distributor, and participation varies. If the customer’s replacement pair breaks within one year of purchase, the customer is entitled to one (1) additional replacement pair. To claim this additional replacement, customer is required to mail the damaged pair to Babiators at: Babiators Returns, Attn: Lost & Found Guarantee, 1054 Grandview Road, Oil City, PA 16301-1227.  The Lost & Found Guarantee replaces the Wear & Tear Guarantee.   - See more at: http://www.babiators.com/terms#sthash.xO4JsVke.dpuf

The Lost & Found Guarantee is limited to one (1) replacement pair per customer. Customers are required to pay the cost of shipping (from our location in the U.S.) for their replacement pair. Customers who register their purchases for shipping locations outside the U.S. may be required to claim their replacement through the Babiators distributor (if we have a distributor in that country), or pay for shipping costs from the U.S. to their country. Lost & Found Guarantee participation in countries where we have a distributor is solely at the discretion of that country's distributor, and participation varies. If the customer’s replacement pair breaks within one year of purchase, the customer is entitled to one (1) additional replacement pair. To claim this additional replacement, customer is required to mail the damaged pair to Babiators at: Babiators Returns, Attn: Lost & Found Guarantee, 1054 Grandview Road, Oil City, PA 16301-1227.  The Lost & Found Guarantee replaces the Wear & Tear Guarantee.   - See more at: http://www.babiators.com/terms#sthash.xO4JsVke.dpuf

The Lost & Found Guarantee is limited to one (1) replacement pair per customer. Customers are required to pay the cost of shipping (from our location in the U.S.) for their replacement pair. Customers who register their purchases for shipping locations outside the U.S. may be required to claim their replacement through the Babiators distributor (if we have a distributor in that country), or pay for shipping costs from the U.S. to their country. Lost & Found Guarantee participation in countries where we have a distributor is solely at the discretion of that country's distributor, and participation varies. If the customer’s replacement pair breaks within one year of purchase, the customer is entitled to one (1) additional replacement pair. To claim this additional replacement, customer is required to mail the damaged pair to Babiators at: Babiators Returns, Attn: Lost & Found Guarantee, 1054 Grandview Road, Oil City, PA 16301-1227.  The Lost & Found Guarantee replaces the Wear & Tear Guarantee.   - See more at: http://www.babiators.com/terms#sthash.xO4JsVke.dpuf

All in all, I'm pretty stoked about these things. BUT to be honest, I only got these because I couldn't find any at Target and thought they were out of season. Lo and behold in my wanderings around Walmart there were a ton of kids sunglasses in the shoe department. You know, because that's the first place people look for sunglasses...

How to Get a Toddler to Wear Sunglasses

I've tried to get my daughter to wear sunglasses. Aside from protecting the long-term health of her eyes, sunglasses would really offer her a lot of comfort. The Sonoran Desert doesn't offer a ton of shade. To no avail. She won't do it.

This is my daughter. She squints a lot.

I tried the obvious infant sunglasses that have a soft elastic strap, but it was a no-go. She instantly started whining and tugged them off her face. I thought she would eventually get used to them, but she always cried and tugged until she got them around her neck. As much as I love strangulation hazards on my toddler, I decided to try something else.

Don't even think about putting these on me, Mom.

We were given a pair of cheapy infant sunglasses that just had regular plastic ear pieces. "Ah ha!" I said, this is it. She will definitely like these better. Well, she did. Her ability to take them off at will diminished that claustrophobic I'm-going-to-suffocate-if-I-can't-get-these-things-off-my-face reaction. So I began The Sunglasses Game.

I picked this little trick up from my sister. My niece has one eye that tended to drift, and my sister noticed it happened more if the eye got tired, such as being exposed to bright sunlight for a period of time. Needless to say, she had good motivation to patiently help her daughter get used to sunglasses. This game is simple, and probably works best for younger toddlers in the 12-24 month range, when they're still entertained by lame things like this.

The Sunglasses Game

All the game consists of is you putting on the glasses, and the baby taking them off again. Eventually, if you child has enough coordination, the game turns into you taking the sunglasses off and your child puts them on again.

If you baby is being really stubborn and won't let you near her face with the sunglasses, you could put the sunglasses on your face and practice taking them on and off. Then when your child is more comfortable with the idea of the sunglasses, you can alternate putting them on your face, and then your child's.

It's that simple. It just takes time, patience, and humor. The trick is to make the sunglasses fun, almost like a toy, instead of something they are forced to wear.

***UPDATE***

I recently spoke with my sister and she brought up the fact that she waited until they were at the beach, when the bright sun was really bothersome, to start the game. That way my niece could really tell that it was more comfortable to have the sunglasses on.

My niece rockin' her awesome shades

So why is my daughter still squinting? Well those cheapy sunglasses broke about a week after we started using them. And now that summer's over no one is carrying baby sunglasses anymore (because apparently if you're not old enough to drive you don't need eye protection). BUT I have something coming to me in the mail that I hope will solve our problem. It's supposed to arrive Friday so I'll write about it then.

Until then I'll just be singing the following around mail time:

What are your tricks for getting the kiddos to wear sunglasses?