Personally, I would never put contacts in a young child's eyes, but it's up to each individual.
Why wouldn't I do it? First, the eye needs to breath and needs a lot of air; young children grow very rapidly. If the eye should grow faster than the size of the contact, then there's the possibility of the eyeball being "squeezed" and having more problems ensue. Also, the cold cleaning formulas still use thimerosal to preserve the solution. Thimerosal is mercury; mercury is toxic, and by putting the solution right in the eye, you're putting mercury directly into your child's body. You'd be surprised how much heavy metal toxicity your child probably already has; you don't need to add more. Also, it's a big responsibility to take care of the lenses, to clean and disinfect them properly, not tear or scratch the lenses. And what happens if one of the lenses pops out at school and gets lost? Then the child is left without anything to wear.
And an even scarier thing--what if your child has dry eyes? It's a hard thing to pinpoint, but it can cause a lot of damage. I know; I tried to wear contacts for 5 years in high school/college before having to give up. First I became allergic to the thimerosal solution, so all cold solutions were out. Then I got the heat/boil system, which for some odd reason, I began getting holes in my contacts. AND my contacts started getting sucked onto my eyeballs and wouldn't come off! Yes, they truly did. It took me half an hour and half a bottle of saline water one day to get one of them off my eye--I should have gone to the eye doctor for help, but I wasn't near a eye place where I could go for help. Turns out I suffer from dry eyes and am unable to wear contacts. In all probability, I'll never be able to have laser eye surgery either.
I've worn glasses since 10 years old/5th grade, my daughter had her first set when she was 3 years old; she's now 9 years old. We never got the wrap around the ear for her, just regular glasses. She was so proud of her glasses. We never had to fight to get her to wear them, as she'd been crying about the light hurting her eyes for a few months prior and knew that she needed them in order to not have headaches, for her eyes not to hurt, and for her to see. She is far-sighted and also suffers from Strabismus. The only problem she's ever had was with kids always wanting to "try them on." The first thing she asks for in the morning is her glasses.
I personally don't think there's anyting wrong with wearing glasses. My daughter outgrew either the frames or the prescriptive lenses way before we ever had to worry about using the breakage deposit. In fact, we just used the breakage deposit this Labor Day weekend--but only because a part of the metal frame itself broke, not from anything my daughter did to break them.
The decision is up to every parent and what their toddler is like/what they get into/how active they are. It also helps if others in the household wear glasses, so that the child sees and learns by example. Do you or your husband wear contacts? Could you wear your own glasses for a 3-4 month period, until your child gets used to wearing her glasses, and then "wean" yourself back onto your contacts? It would help enormously. I know in our case it did.