My Child Woke Up Screaming With a Giant Eyelid Lump: A Parent’s Guide to Styes, Infections, and When to Seek Help

It can happen frighteningly fast. Your child goes to bed with what looks like a tiny red bump near the eyelashes. By morning, the eyelid is swollen, puffy, and angry-looking—sometimes so dramatically that your first thought is: Do we need to go to the emergency room? That fear is understandable because swelling around a child’s eye can look far worse than the problem causing it. Sometimes, the explanation really is something relatively minor, such as a stye. A stye is a tender bump that develops when a gland around the eyelid becomes blocked or infected.…