Make sure that she learns braille when she goes to school. Statistically, it’s much more likely that she’ll be employed if she learns this skill.
Also, apply for early intervention if it’s available where you are.
I live in the United States, and my mom had me signed up for early intervention when I was very young.
People would come and teach me how to use a cane, expose me to different textures, and all kinds of things that I honestly don’t remember, but that have helped me out immensely in ways I can’t even enumerate.
Also, don’t limit her to schools for the blind. This may be where she needs to be, but depending on her situation, she may have a better experience in a cited classroom. There are a lot of programs now that are meant to keep children with disabilities and classrooms with their nondisabled peers. Personally, this is how I went to school, and I feel I have benefited from it.

If you haven’t done so, reach out to your school district as your daughter is eligible for services now. A teacher for the visually impaired will come to your house and work with her.

Go to $1, $1, and $1 for resources and networking. You are not alone.

If you do end up moving, consider moving to city or a “streetcar suburb” that is well-served by public transit. Start taking her places by bus or train when she’s old enough, like 10 or so, so that looking up timetables (lots of apps nowadays, like Transit or CityMapper), crossing streets and traveling on transit safely becomes second-nature. It can be really tough for someone who was shuttled around by car, to become an independent adult when they cannot drive, because American towns are built so car-dependent. (p.s. the youtube channel Not Just Bikes has a lot of great information on how building a life outside of cars in walkable cities with good transit can make for a richer and more interesting life)

Something you may consider when she is older is martial arts. My husband attended a judo class and the youth section had a girl practicing there who was blind. It could be an excellent confidence builder.

Lots of brilliant advice here already. The braille thing is huge, and we get a lot of resistance to Braille from parents here (I teach blind people at a local college and am blind myself by the way). it can be hard for parents with no braille experience but you *must* realise that the Braille alphabet won't be a foreign and different thing to her, it will be *her* alphabet. When you see an s, she will se ⠎. When you write the year 2022, she will visualise ⠼⠃⠚⠃⠃. it will be natural for her, as unatural as it might now seem to you.

My own opinion is that the best thing you can do is encourage a knowledge of both. let her feel raised letters wherever possible as she gets older. Certainly encourage her to learn to use a pen to sign her name, that's still required here. As soon as she's able to hold a crayon, make sure she uses it to the max. there are both tactile and edible paints and things, too. Go wild. Get messy. Braille is very ... blocky? Rectangular? So learning about shape, that lines curve etc is useful. Lots of things have raised lettering on them (bottles, jars etc). Don't shy away from using them, but enforce the Braille wherever you can. label things. I had absolutely no idea how much written material was around the world, being totally blind, until I had a sighted child who started to read EVERYTHING. Braille felt limiting and restrictive to me. For every 1 thing I could read there were 20 I couldn't, and that sucked. Google Pre-Braille skills. Get her on those as soon as her hands are accurate enough.

Next words of wisdom? Encourage good posture. As a blind child I saw no reason at all to walk with my head up - it didn't give me any better sensory information. it was only peer pressure and constant niggling from adults that made me realise how much of a sighted world we live in. I'm so glad this happened before I went to high school - I was so much more socially acceptable as a result. I'm not saying that all "blindisms" are bad, but there is an expectation of "normality" in public life.

use words: Describing pictures is great. Explaining comedy after the fact is helpful. talking about colour, about light and shadow, about shade and what looks "good" or not is useful. But having never had eyesight, all of these come back to words. The wider your daughter's vocabulary, the better she can express herself, but also the more she can interconnect ideas and concepts told to her.

Gosh, probably so much more I could just ramble on for ages. but well done for being proactive. Please keep posting here.

I'm an adult with ONH. Vision is such a wide spectrum so it's hard to compare my ONH vision to your child's but at the end of the day please encourage your child every step of the way. My mom let her anxiety and worry about my low vision get to me. I wasn't very confident in my abilities growing up. And I'm sure you already are but do as much research as you can and take advantage of any resources.

I was able to attend a "normal" public school. Had to explain to teachers/staff that my low vision didn't make me stupid. I just needed the proper resources (being able to sit at the front of the class and having access to accessibility settings on school computers).

Sorry I'm babbling over here but I wish you the best!!

Hello! I'm not blind, but I have a 14 year old son with ONH. We were told he had no light perception at all, but turns out he's just completely blind in one eye and his other eye has some vision, so you don't really know exactly what your kid sees until she's old enough to tell you. Also, I know that you said you aren't looking for medical advice, but please make sure you're going to the endocrinologist. My son has a lot of hormone problems and I feel like this wasn't always recognized by the eye professionals.

You seem like you're doing a great job! So my experience is very US-centric so hopefully this is relevant to you. Start looking for stuff now! Some of my greatest experiences when my kid was little was the Infant-Toddler program at Perkins. Under three, your kid should be eligible for "Early Intervention" until they're three, and they can come and work with the kiddo and help you find great activities for her.

Blind people like all kinds of different things just like sighted people. Just maybe goal ball instead of soccer, or more tactile forms of art. But you can do a lot of the same things with your sighted kid and your non sighted kid. Hiking, music, sports, arts and crafts. You can learn to adapt a lot of things. Also trays. Buy some cafeteria trays, for food and art projects, cause it give a limited space to keep supplies in so there's some frame of reference.

Going in to school, you're probably going to have two major professionals your kid works with for Blind Reasons- a TVI (teacher of the visually impaired) and an O+M instructor (orientation and mobility instructor). The O+M mostly teaches the kid how to get around. Everything from stairs to street crossings to (eventually) public transit use. The TVI does more academic stuff- teaching braille (which you should ABSOULTEY do, at least a few years, just to learn the basics even if she is able to read with sight), adapting her schoolwork, etc. Both of these are super important. Your kid might also work with an occupational therapist, physical therapist, and other professionals, but that depends on what your kid needs. Don't be afraid to consult with people, to figure out what you need to fight for. Your state should have a commission for the blind, and your kid's social worker through that organization can be an AMAZING resource, even before school age (and after school age!). Schools for the blind can be great, but sometimes they lean more toward kids with multiple disabilities and that could be isolating for a kid who's blindness is their "only" disability. Encourage cane use, and early. It's way harder to get a middle school kid to start using a cane that just someone who has been using it since they were a toddler.

So we live up in the northeast, and my son's been to three different programs for blind kids. Perkins has outreach programs for kids who don't go to school there, and they have some really cool weekend programs with neat themes and lots of skills work. My son went to camp inter-actions in new hampshire, but he personally didn't like it, its very outdoorsy, classic camp experience. He's also been to the Carroll Kids/Carroll Teens in Newton, which is a week or two during the summer and more of a "city camp", and he's enjoyed that.

Netflix has audio description on a LOT of their content so flicking that audio version on can be really good for your kiddo. When you go to the movies, theatres have a little radio with headphones that a blind person can use to hear audio description.

Please feel free to message me if you want to talk more!

I'm not a parent. I'm your daughter. My parents were where you are now. A doctor came into my mother's room after she'd given birth to me and very harshly told her that I was blind and "she better get used to that fact." My mom was hysterical.

Lucky for her, the obstetrician was kinder and gentler with her. There was a period of sadness and mourning because they didn't envision this for their first baby girl.

I had my first surgery at three days old.

Start with early intervention as soon as possible. Your state will have services for the blind. Use them and be a strong advocate for your daughter. DON'T BE SHY ABOUT DEMANDING WHAT SHE NEEDS. Please make sure you don't close her off at home or just in the family. Get out and go for walks, to the store, to the beach, wherever you are talking your other child.

You will run into people who are asses and are rude and make comments. Perfect the blank stare, the cold, "What a personal question, why do you want to know?"

My parents fought hard for me every step of the way. It wasn't easy. I went to college and graduate school. I have a great job, a house, and a wonderful husband.

This isn't what you wanted for your family or your child, but you can help her have a wonderful, rich, full life. It's possible.

Good luck to all of you.

Honestly, you've already done the best thing you can possibly do for your daughter: You're asking for input in a way that suggests you're dedicated and, very importantly, really open to all sorts of answers.

I'm blind myself, have no kid but of course a lot of own experience having been one. And having a truly open mind is the number one thing I'd want for all the parents out there. That's relevant with blind kids in specific because your kid's experience will be different than what you expect in some ways: Different from sighted kids' experience obviously, but also from other blind kids', and sometimes it will even surprise you how your daughter will end up having the very same needs and experiences as if she wasn't blind.

I know this sounds pretty vague, but where I'm going with this is that something your daughter will need to learn especially well is what her position in the world is, what she's capable of and what not, how she can figure things out for herself, how to interact with sighted people who are often extremely insecure about how to interact with her. This all is a bit complicated, but as long as your daughter knows that she can rely on her parents to be patient and caring about her, she'll have a great fundation for growing into a happy and confident person.

For example, my parents always made it clear to me (if consciously or not) that making mistakes/being clumsy about doing simple things in daily life is absolutely not acceptable. I agree with that , it's really important for me to be generally capable, self dependent and to not give the impression that I cannot handle things like going to a supermarket, working an office job or travel around. But my parents never bothered taking my very own perspective, struggles etc. into account, so they'd just want to force me to learn better, and I'd force myself to do as best I could, but without them acccepting my current stage and limitations and questions, it didn't work out all too well, and as an adult, I'm still extremely anxious about being able to learn how to do things, always fearing that I'm flawed for not getting it right instantly.

As for games or activities, when I was a few years old I loved music and audio books, and for many years, having my parents read me books was one of the best activities ever. In general, let her experiment a lot with what she likes as you did with the piano keyboard, and as she grows older make sure to not be too worried about her physically getting in danger: Sure, you'll need to keep an eye on her to make sure she's safe, but you'll eventually learn what is an issue and what isn't. For example, we'd always have little barriers at the ends of the staircases in our house so that I wouldn't fall down the stairs (so aparently it took me a while to figure that out), but what was completely unnecessary was to glue soft things onto any corner where I could've possibly hit my head (I remember my overly worried grandma always did that and and I found it super weird as a kid). So even though I can't really tell you anything from the parents' perspective, I guess it's important to experiment a lot with what works and what is needed. I'm wishing you all the best!

It sounds like your daughter is in the best hands possible, and the advice others have already given here is all very good. I don't have anything to offer to help your daughter that hasn't already been said.

But I can't help but notice you didn't mention yourselves. You're in for an emotional roller coaster and you're so focused on making sure your daughter's buckled in that I wonder if you've checked your own safety belt, or your spouse's.

Keep an eye on each other's mental health. Be there for each other, not just for your daughter. This will be as emotionally traumatic for you as it is for your daughter. Do you have a plan for that? You should. Just like you're looking into summer camps and professional services for your daughter, look into relationship counseling and professional services for yourselves. Know who to call *before* an emergency. Have a de-escalation plan *before* you need one. Hopefully you'll never need to use it.

Sending my love to you and your whole family,

OMOF

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* Apply for early intervention. I personally called it blind class, but in all reality it does teach useful things, and when I was a baby they also would help my guardian to learn how to modify things for me and that sort of thing.
* If you don't live in a place with public transportation, move to a place that does. I don't live in a place that has it, and as a teenager, it sucks not being able to hang out with friends, or be out on my own. If I ever want to go somewhere, my guardian has to come too. It's also set me back on mobility. When I move out, I'll have to learn the things I was unable to where I live, on my own.
* You can totally DIY things to make them accessible! buying items that are already accessible can get pretty expensive. For the most part modifications can be made on your own for much cheaper. You can look up ideas for that. Toys, boardgames, and pretty much everything can be made accessible. It helps if you also learn braille.
* Whenever you go to an event, let them no at least 24 hours in advance that you'll have a blind participant with you. This will give the venue time to get the proper accommodations set up for her.
* Netflix, and Hulu both have audio descriptions for some of their shows. This will help her watch TV and movies, and can be found where you can add subtitles/
* Podcasts are also somewhat of a godsend in the entertainment department. There are fiction ones, and there are child friendly ones. You'll have to do some digging, but podcasts require absolutely no vision.
* Braille books can get expensive, so audiobooks can be a good alternative. Go to your local library and ask if your area has an audiobooks for the blind library, and how to sign up for it. Most states do have them, but I don't know about other places. Once signed up, they'll send you everything you need to listen to the books, and a pamphlet to order specific books. All of this should be designed to be accessible to your daughter, but especially when she is young it is A-OK to assist her.)
* Get familiar with your areas laws regarding disability. Each state in the US will have different ADA laws because it's no longer managed federally, but there are some base things you can expect.

Know blindness will be a fact of life for her, and while it may seem like a big deal to her in school, it wont always be like that. she can do whatever she wants in life. Blindness isn't a curse.

It might sound counter-productive right now but if you need to just stop and take a breath.
There’s such a lot of information and different opinions out there that can be a lot to assimilate, especially if you have two small kids.

I should say that I’m a blind adult (early 30s in the UK) so I can’t really give you much insight as a parent.

However I think my mum did find going to support groups fairly useful at first, as it gave her a chance to connect with other parents and also for me to spend time with other blind children.

Regarding a specialist education, there are different opinions on this and it really depends a lot on you and your child.
There is not a correct answer here.

I do think that social inclusion, integration and normalisation are incredibly important though regardless of what education system you choose, so make sure that your daughter has plenty of opportunities to interact with all sorts of different people (blind, other disabilities, no disabilities.

I am also the type of person that thinks cultural integration and stuff like that is important though, so for me this goes deeper than just disabled versus non-disabled.

I’m an engineer‘s daughter and as a kid I really likes building toys, so I had things like Duplo and probably an equivalent for even smaller children when I was younger.

I probably did have some more specialised sensory toys but honestly I don’t remember them.
I just remember that I liked Barbies but also trucks and laser guns.

I would definitely recommend pushing for her to be taught Braille, as I think it’s very important to learn to actually physically read and it’s probably a lot easier when you’re a child.

She will learn this when her sighted peers are learning to read print, and you can get print and braille copies of books so that you and her can read together as she grows.
My parents are not super confident readers so I didn’t do very much reading aloud as a child and might have appreciated doing more.

Also I love to draw and make things, so again when she is a bit older you could get some plastic g embossing film and a mat for her to draw on.
You can also draw things for her.

This is a very cheap way to access drawing compared to some alternatives, and it is something you can do together, like you might do with sighted children.

I also enjoyed clay, Play-Doh, plasticine and Fingerpaint.

I can imagine that it’s absolutely terrifying sometimes, but try not to be a helicopter parent.
If children are given the right amount of freedom and space to learn and make mistakes then it doesn’t seem to turn out well for them later on.

For example when I was learning to crawl I would often just charge around the house and we had a freezer with tiny dent in the door that were apparently caused by me crashing into it.

My parents could’ve taken the approach of putting a helmet on me, or just over supervising me or not even letting me explore, but my mum‘s attitude at that point was well if she does it enough she’ll figure out where it is and then hopefully won’t do it anymore.
Obviously I’m not saying run wild and don’t supervise your child, but they do need to make sense of their environment in their own way.

I’m sure we will get much more informative advice from people on here who are geographically closer to you and also know what it’s like bringing up a child in 2022.

Anyway best of luck with everything, I’m sure you are in for a rewarding and fantastic ride.

Hi there everybody! My fiancé and I have really appreciated all of these comments, and have taken a lot of the advice very seriously.

Just a little update in case anybody cared, but there was a few comments and messages that mentioned some things I wanted to address a bit here, and just to share a bit because I am so happy with how everything is going.

Baby girl just turned 8 months old! She’s happier than ever and we have a whole butt-load of newer information. We have been on a sort of roller coaster of sorts with all of the doctors appointments that have been thrown our way. Eventually we had an MRI done for our daughter, and Septo-Optic Dysplasia was ruled out. However they discovered that she has no olfactory bulbs (so she can’t smell either) and have recommended we have her and ourselves genetically tested, which we have started the process of, because it seems like her doctors are extremely confused as to why this happened. We also have followed up with an appointment with an endocrinologist just to make sure we didn’t miss anything, and so far it seems she’s going to be just fine in that department.

Otherwise baby girl is doing exceptionally well! Developmentally, her teachers are impressed by how much she can do despite her disability (proud mama moment) she’s at the same level (if not farther than us some areas) as most sighted babies her age (again, proud mama moment). She actually has started crawling a bit! I was sitting there one day and she just randomly got up on her knees and elbows and started going! It’s happened a couple more times since, but I’m still so shocked.

Also, big thank you to the people who told us to reach out to the Help Me Grow program, it’s been such a lifesaver.

We also have really started to notice how interested our daughter is in music, she starts to smile whenever she hears daddy playing guitar for her, and prefers to fall asleep to the sound of the Beatles. We let her pluck some strings on daddy’s guitar and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so happy, just touching the guitar strings gets her so excited. And she loves when literally ANYBODY sings to her, and often “sings” along. Obviously I don’t plan to force the whole stereotype of being a musician on her, but if she does become one someday I wouldn’t be surprised.

So again, thank you to everybody for all of the advice and kind words we have received, and obviously we love that people are still commenting, the more information and advice the better. I’m so grateful for everything and everybody who has helped us so far.

A lot of good advice already.

I think and I can’t stress enough don’t shelter your kid, and let her find out what she wants. I think I got it now but it took me 10 years to figure out what I naturally was good at, what I gravitated towards, what major I wanted to do. Where my real stregths were actually.

I am an extremely capable and hands on person but I wasn’t allowed to. Very technical, and kinesthetic. I am a kinesthetic learner but I was never allowed to learnt like that.

I want to work with tools and take computers apart more, but again, not allowed. My sister had a set where she could build a house with small bricks. That set was given to my sister for christmas and not me. The ironic thing it’s much more of my thing. I am much more of a kinesthetic hands on type of person.

I wasn’t allowed to go too far away from home, and I forced the issue just did it anyway, and then I could. In my twenties I’ve been almost everywhere. All over my county, been on buses, and transport, went food hunting/yelping, I discovered 3 years ago now I liked traveling for different reasons then most but the sheer exploration and seeing historical landmarks. Half the fun was being blind and getting there. Again, hands on kinesthetic. I had to learn I had good kinesthetic, and good proprioception. That I should probably use them.

I went to 6 different states by myself on the opposite coast of this country. And really challenged myself, nothing I could do during my teenage years. I also went to a different country before this and semi-independently explored there was days I did this and days I was driven around.

I had to fight my parents for every little bit of independence I had, sacrificed relationnal stuff for it. But I am as independent as I am. My parents did not want to let go.

I am asian so things are a bit different. My parents still don’t think I am that much. And they would have rather me do an office job like lawyering or something.

All that to say is don’t do this. I’ve had to learn who I was. My father also was busy show casing me. I did have an easy start to public life and service, and started advocating and representing preteen years. But in my mid to late twenties honestly these last two years been frantically putting together who I am and stuff of that nature, adding up two and two, observing what I have been trying out and leaning towards the last ten years.


Your daughter is blind sure, and I am also blind, but at the end of the days we’re both individuals with our own personalities, needs and we’re just humans who happen to be blind. So treat her like a normal human. Blindness is what she has to cope with or overcome or adapt to, but that’s it.

Also don’t shove her in her corner, here have your entertainment and wait until we’re done but you can’t join us. I was very cornered and sheltered even if I wanted to participate. I wasn’t welcomed until I made my own way and my own crowd and met my own people. Still the same way with my parent’s and their friends I can’t go there, I am sorry. Just sit there and listen to your book or music. Yeah. Basically without saying it be a good kid and leave us all alone will ya!

Social skills wasn’t encouraged or trained I really wanted to play with other kids but I was not encouraged to, the kids were never encouraged to play with me, they didn’t want to and was allowed not to.

I had to learn social skills in college, and now I stress it.

Am I the most socialble person, go to all the parties. No. And it’s not my temperment but yeah….

also blind people can be a big huge personality. I am also a female but people look at me and it’s like you’re female and you’re blind, you’re not suppose to be a big huge personality. Nope! Wrong! Go back in to your corner now kiddo.

At least as a kid. I mean some people still look at me weird but there’s more exceptence and I hang out around those who do tend to accept me more.

My parents say and still say you act like a powerful person. Okay why can’t I be.

So yeah. There’s a couple more things.

Don't send her off to a school for the blind. They'll say "oh but it's the best place for her," or "It's where people are experts at teaching blind people." She'll likely exit high school with a deep resistance to further education, or at least be very unprepared for college. At the one I went to, we took Algebra for two years, getting to about chapter three in the textbook. We took one year or Geometry, never took trigonometry or anything higher. Our "programming" class used a programming language, Quorum, which was pretty much designed for blind people, and will not prepare anyone for a language like Python or even JavaScript which is used in actual products.

People who came from regular, mainstream schools came to the school for the blind to relax and basically do just enough work to pass. It's much slower. And people who grow up there won't be used to the fast pace of college, and definitely won't be used to the pace of work, and definitely not the stress levels.

Don't feel you have to do the whole school for the blind thing. I was very successful all through my education at "normal" school. I had educational assistance, but I still made plenty of sighted friends, and still tried sports and played games of pretend.

Get your daughter started with Braille as early as possible, try to find Print Braille picture books! Some will say Braille is obsolete, but think about this, would you want your son's education to be completely on computer and him not knowing how to print and write?

Get some puzzles with large pieces, or some Lego blocks, anything that's fun to move around with the fingers.

You will have to describe things more, but treat both your children the same!

A lot of good opinions have already been given, so most likely there isn't much I can add. But still, here are my opinions, as someone who was a blind child themself not too long ago:

I do not advise sending your daughter to a blind school. Not unless mental development issues make it absolutely necessary. I was in one myself until the 6th grade, and if I could go back, I would go to "normal" school right away. As it was, I had previously been in a school where — due to Slovenia being a tiny country and thus only having a small blind population — I had no peers my age, and was instead in the same class with a couple older pupils. Fortunately, this did not have a huge effect on my academic abilities; I relished the faster pace provided by the normal school and have made it to university now. However, it meant that I had absolutely no idea how to socialise with others, had picked up a whole bunch of weird bilndy habits that took a while to unlearn, and did not have any friends at all. I am doing much better now, but I feel like I will never fully make up for missing those years of socialisation.

Braille, though? Extremely important. Do not listen to those blind people — of whom there is a worrying amount — who tell you that screen readers have made it unecessary. Your daughter may decide that she prefers working with text to speech, and that is OK! It is faster, I freely admit that. But I have not yet found any better way for learning a language than actually reading it, and the countless unusual spelling mistakes specific only to blind people confirm that. Math is another area where braille helps understanding, as sound simply cannot allow one to visualise the whole problem as adequately as sound. And there are few greater pleasures than lying in bed with a book on your chest, especially because you can read in the dark and trick your parents into thinking that you are most definitely asleep ... ahem, not that your daughter would ever do that, so there is no need to check. :)

Make sure to teach her how to be independent, even if that means exposing her to safe amounts of danger. Allow her to practice her cane skills without intervention, even if that means crashing into a sign (but of course not if it means running onto the road or falling down a hole). Let her learn how close to a fire one can stand, how to light matches, use a lighter. Let her use sharp knives, because while they cut fingers worse, dull ones bounce off and cut more often. For the same reason, get her a safety razor if she ever wants to shave; one sharp blade shaves much better than multiple dull ones. Oh, and a nice synthetic shaving brush while you're at it, because if she's anything like me, she'll enjoy the texture and feeling ... but I may be going off topic here.

Regarding toys, I'd say don't worry too much. I did not have all that many blindness-specific ones, and I don't think I ever missed them. Your usual plush toys, plastic cars, legos, etc. work quite well. Accessible board and card games are something you may want to look into though, so there are activities you can do together. When it comes to cards, once she knows how to write braille, you can even buy un-brailled ones and make them accessible together!

One thing I would like to emphasise because of my own bad experiences is that you must always remember that your daughter's body belongs to her. My mother really wanted a nicely dressed feminine girl, and because I could not see clothes well enough to buy them on my own, my opinions were too often ignored. Please, do not buy things for her. Buy them *with* her. Describe the things available and help her choose, even if she chooses something that is unusual within today's edition of the artificial gender binary. She has just as much of a right to explore her identity and expression as sighted people do, be it because of actually being transgender, or just simple curiocity. Regardless of how you may feel about her choices, do not try to use her blindness against her by lying to her about what what you buy; she will find out eventually, and your relationship will suffer greatly.
This is very specific, being on the intersection of disability and gender issues, so it may never end up applying to you. And regardless, there is a long way to go before she is old enough for that. But still, I wanted to put it out there.

I'm afraid that none of this advice will be particularly helpful right now, only later down the road. But I hope that you can get enough support about that elsewhere, and that, as exhausting as it can be to be a parent, you all enjoy your lives to come as best yo u can.

I was born with septo optic dysplasia and best advice is raise her where she can do whatever she wants. :) Don't hinder her. :) Encourage her to do whatever she wants. The Sky is the limit. :D

Let her fall down, do not molly koddle? Her. Let her do chores, if her school or anyone teaches her how to cook, keep up the lessons at home. Let her play with the cited neighbours, let her make sighted friends.
Encourage her to get a job.

I wasn’t blind (I was deaf/HoH) as a kid, so my advice is more general, but a thing my parents did that I really appreciate now that I’m an adult: expect me to participate in the running of the household. I burned things in the oven, washed the dishes, went grocery shopping, sat with them while they paid the bills, was their helper while they worked to maintain the house. Your daughter won’t be able to just watch these things happen. She will need to take part and touch and hear what you are doing to prepare her to do it herself as an adult. And perhaps you will need to look at the tasks you do by sight and figure out how she would do them without.
My wife is not disabled in any way and she didn’t have these experiences. Her parents focused on giving her activities to do (sports mostly, but also camps and clubs). When we moved in together, I was the only one of us who knew how to take care of a home. Her mom paid her bills until her mid 20’s because she didn’t know how to read an invoice-because no one ever let her. She couldn’t cook-because no one ever let her. And to this day, she thinks things are clean when they are not. I’m still helping her with that. I would also second the poster that said to live in an accessible community. Whether that means walkable or having transit available. When her peers start getting their driver’s licenses, she should be familiar enough with her neighborhood and/or the transit system to navigate those independently. Orientation and Mobility training from a Professional will help with this, but if she’s already familiar by going with you, the formal training will enhance the experience of independence and confidence that comes with freedom of movement.