Our daughter is 3 and a half years old, and just a couple of weeks ago, she has started to have this unusual blinking. When she blinks sometimes, she really scrunches her eyes, sort of in an exaggerated way, using a lot of facial movement. Could this be her straining to see, or is this the beginnings of a tic, or is this just a behavioural thing? No evidence of any of this in either my wife's or my family.

Dear Mark,

Though I am unqualified to comment, I thought I would say that I had a similar complaint when I was a child. It turned out to be a nervous reaction.

Chris.

Hey. I had that very same problem 2 years ago.
Don't worry.
My parents are both doctors, however my mom had no idea what this might be, although she's an ophthalmologist. We visited all the docotrs we could - we thought it could be anything from bad vision to psychological abnormalities.
I even had my brain checked. Sheesh.
I don't have that problem anymore.
See, I used to wake up at 7 am and go to sleep at 2 am. I was a freaking busy student. I studied alla time.
But anyway - she's not having enough sleep or she is just watching too much of TV or something like that. Try getting her like baths with pine scent in them. Buy some herbs that kind of calm down. You know, let her sleep more. Be gentle.
See if this helps. If in 2-3 weeks there is no change - then you should visit a neurologist or maybe just a pediatrician. They'll recommend same thing I just did, but heck who knows.
P.S. This might sound weird but look - I haven't been getting enough sleep last week and yesterday I've slept for only about 5 hours - now I'm blinking like that again. Imagine how sensitive her young organism is.
Good Luck.

I am 17 years old and I have people ask me all the time why I blink funny sometimes. I do exactly like you said, I guess you could call it squinting when I blink I crunch my cheeks up and my eye brows down. I have come to notice that I do this when I am extreamly tired although from the post before me it could also have something to do with nerves or stress.

I don't want to scare you,but my uncle does that too, he used to do that before he got red fever, which resulted in him getting epilepsy. Now that he is on epilepsy pills the blinking has stopped, but my grandma was a nurse, and when jim (my uncle) started blinking like that she took him straight to the hospital, and it was early simptims of epilepsy. Sorry to scare you. But I would go to a doctor and check it out best of luck.
Little miss vixen

Hi,
I agree with seeing a doctor if this doesn't stop in a couple of weeks.
It could be anything, as others say, from nevousness, to a nerve, to an eye problem itself.
Please see a doctor; don't take any chances, might not be anything, or could be something that finding out now would be a lot better.
Best of luck,
fredg