What does your baby see in the first year

For any moth­er, the first eye con­tact with the baby is one of the most impor­tant moments in life. How­ev­er, it should be under­stood that the vision of new­borns is very dif­fer­ent from the vision of adults or even chil­dren from one year old. We will tell you about the main stages in the devel­op­ment of a child’s vision.

After birth

A new­born baby dis­tin­guish­es only shades of black and white. Yes, at that very impor­tant moment when you look into your baby’s eyes, he still sees just a blur.

A few days after birth, the baby can dis­tin­guish the face of his moth­er from oth­er peo­ple. Also, the baby can fol­low mov­ing objects and dis­tin­guish between the emo­tions of par­ents, but only if they are no fur­ther than 30 cen­time­ters from the baby’s eyes.

1 month

A week after birth, the baby already begins to dis­tin­guish between red, orange, yel­low and green. Blue and pur­ple appear in their palette a lit­tle lat­er. Also, in the first month of life, the baby’s eyes are not too sen­si­tive to light, so you can safe­ly leave the night light on in the baby’s room, it will not inter­fere with his sleep.

2–3 months

Dur­ing this peri­od of life, visu­al acu­ity begins to increase. The baby begins to focus on close objects, reach for them and fol­low with his eyes. The field of view expands, the child no longer has to turn his head to look away. Leav­ing a night light in the room will no longer work, because the eyes become sen­si­tive. Dur­ing this peri­od, it is worth shift­ing toys or rear­rang­ing the crib so that the baby looks at the objects around him.

4–6 months

Six months after birth, the baby has already devel­oped the visu­al cen­ters of the brain, he already sees clear­ly, fol­lows objects longer and holds his atten­tion. The child is already begin­ning to dis­tin­guish all the col­ors of the rain­bow. At this time, sched­uled exam­i­na­tions by an oph­thal­mol­o­gist take place, when you can find out if the baby has far­sight­ed­ness or myopia.

7–12 months

The child becomes very active, he crawls a lot and can already appre­ci­ate the dis­tance of objects, so hide every­thing that is bright and that the baby does not need to touch, take in his mouth, throw or spoil. Clos­er to the year your child is again wait­ing for a sched­uled exam­i­na­tion by an oph­thal­mol­o­gist, who will final­ly be able to put a visu­al devi­a­tion. Remem­ber that most diag­nos­tic meth­ods require a cer­tain posi­tion of the eyes, so the baby must be ready to play, not sleepy or hun­gry. You should also not com­bine an oph­thal­mol­o­gist’s exam­i­na­tion with oth­er doc­tors, tests or vac­ci­na­tions, so as not to over­load your baby.