What’s causing my baby to have watery or sticky eyes?

I may assure you from the beginning that this problem can trouble a lot of babies and often resolves by its own before the age of one year.
Hope you feel little better already!
It often happens because your baby’s tear duct (the tube that carry tears from the eyes to the nose) can be slow to fully develop and open enough to drain the tears properly.

When your baby gets a cold this condition may be more manifested because usually the narrow portion of the tear duct is situated, guess where? In the nose.

Don’t worry, it won’t affect your baby’s vision but sure is annoying to you and your sweetie.

What to do?

If the eye(s) is only watery you can perform gentle massages with your finger everyday outside the inner angle of the eye, by moving your index finger gently from 1 to 2 to 3 (see next drawing).
Two to three sessions per day is ok.
Persevere. Don’t lose hope.

If there is runny nose try to clean (spray or suck).
If your baby has sticky eye(s) wipe with some damp cotton wool moisten with slightly warm, previously boiled water. Then proceed to massages as explained before.

Remember that sticky eyes don’t always mean antibiotic drops. Treatment with these drops is necessary only when the white of your baby’s eye is really infected (red) and doesn’t respond to your cleaning regimen…

Till when must I endure this?

As I mentioned earlier usually it improves before your baby’s 1st birthday.
But, (sorry to say “but”) sometimes, approximately 5% of affected babies will need a minor surgical procedure if the condition persists and annoys both of you.

P.S.
Also in my practice I noticed that sometimes there is associated hypermetropia or astigmatism or both in the affected eye which if not corrected properly (usually with eye glasses) will prevent the expected improvement.