This GIF Shows Exactly What Babies See During Their First Year of Life
Ever wondered what a baby sees as soon as he or she is born?
The answer? Not much. They can differentiate between light and dark - something they learn in the womb - which they use to make out shapes and lines. Everything is hazy and entirely black and white. The first time your baby sees you, you're likely just a big gray blob.
The good stuff, like color and clarity, takes time. Babies' optical nerves aren't fully formed right away and their brains need time to mature, a process that is actually pretty cool to think about, but hard to conceptualize. UK eye surgeon Dr. Romesh Angunawela, of Clinic Compare, changed that, however, when he made a GIF that helps us see what babies see during their first year.
"The visual cortex of the brain takes up nearly one third of the whole brain," Angunawela told the Daily Mail, "And begins to learn to process the flood of visual information it encounters from the moment your baby opens their eyes for the first time."
It's growth at first sight, but at three months, the GIF shows, babies begin to see color - red is the first they can identify - but are limited in what kinds of color they can process. Only bold colors stand out, meaning pastels, shades of black and textures aren't yet stimulating their brains. They become able to identify and fix on faces around them - which is probably why this period is defined by a baby's first smile.
At four months, babies begin to see beyond a 10-inch radius; depth perception and range of vision increase. These continue to improve throughout their first year, which "coincide with increased interest and exploration of the world around them," explained Angunawela. Your little one's peepers strengthen as they explore, crawl and connect.
Babies are by no means 20/20 when they turn one, but they have a pretty solid view of the world they live in. That also probably explains why they begin to get into literally everything.
Vision develops well past a child's first year - changes become more subtle, though, as you'll see in the GIF, between 7 and 12 months - but there are things you can do to encourage eyesight progression. In their early months, surround your baby with contrasting colors - that will catch their eyes. Wear black-and-white clothing, consider a striped-wall or use striped bedding.
Staying within 12 inches of their faces and donning bright and bold colors are also beneficial, says Angunawela. They might not recognize the actual shade, but introducing color early on only gets babies to a technicolor world that much faster.
[h/t Daily Mail]
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