Vision Development in Babies - Know the Steps

Your baby's eyesight undergoes a lot of its development after the baby has been born. This is because visual stimuli are needed in order for the part of the brain that processes vision to develop to spring into action. Once a baby is born they will start taking in visual information and they will use it to learn about their world. It will take your baby about eight months to develop depth perception and other visual skills.

Newborn Eyesight

When your baby is born he can see, although his vision will be extremely blurry. At this early age vision is basically limited to a range of about eight to fifteen inches. This visual acuity is just good enough to bring your face into focus when the baby is being held or nursed. It is very important to spend a lot of time at this range from your baby so that they can get to know your face and to establish a visual and an emotional bond. Don't worry if your baby's eyes seem to act independent of one another and wander about aimlessly. You baby just hasn't learned to control her eyes as a pair yet.

Vision at One Month

By one month the baby will have learned how to control their eyes as a pair. This will improve their ability to focus and track objects. They will still prefer high contrast objects, as these are going to be the easiest to see.

Vision at Two Months

When your baby is two months old they will be able to tell the difference between bold color differences. At this age primary colored objects and high contrast black and white objects are going to be the most interesting to your baby. They will still have a hard time telling the difference between color tones that look similar, such as blue and green or red and orange. They will also have harder times seeing differences in pastel colors.

Vision at Four Months

At the age of four months your baby's vision will have improved dramatically, especially in terms of color contrast acuity and color shade differentiation. Their depth perception will also be more developed at this age.

Vision at Five Months

At five months the baby will be able to see small objects and their depth perception will be markedly improved. They will also be able to track objects very efficiently and they will be able to see both distant and close objects.

Vision at Eight Months

By the age of eight months the baby's vision will be nearly as good as an adult's. Their eye color will also be close to its final hue and shade. At this point your baby's vision will undergo changes as they get older. Vision problems like astigmatisms, nearsightedness and farsightedness may not be apparent until the child is much older. However, if vision problems run in your family it is a good idea to get your baby's vision screened early.

References

http://www.babycentre.co.uk/baby/development/sight/