Visual perception - how babies discover the world

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When they are born, babies can see , but sight is one of the senses that develops slowly over time. In the first few weeks of life, newborns can only see very vague and blurry images. They can recognize faces and contrasts, but babies are only able to follow an object with their eyes once they are one month old. In babies, this process requires high levels of muscle strength in the eye, and coordination.

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Visual perception

Can babies see colors?

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Babies can only start to perceive color in the second and third months of their lives. Firstly, they are capable of distinguishing color tones, then they develop an interest in brilliant primary colors and contrasts. From four months onward, they start to recognize objects and their depth perception improves. Only after about 8 months is the baby's visual perception developed enough for it to perceive its surroundings as an adult can. However, it still takes months or years to achieve full visual acuity and for children to fully develop their ability to see spatially or to perceive contrasts.

Encouraging visual development in babies

Parents can already assist their children with developing their vision in the first year of their life, because visual perception is a essential prerequisite for many other milestones in life. For example, these include the first intentional smile or reaching for certain things. Spatial vision is primarily related to the stimulation of hand-eye coordination. This makes gripping toys ideal for encouraging babies to explore and visually perceive at a very early age. As their ability to see increasingly develops, small children begin to perceive things in space, to recognize them and to point to them. If they see something particularly exciting outside of their reach, this will also encourage them to crawl towards it and inspect the object in more detail. Additionally, experts recommend high exposure to daylight, which promotes networking in the nerve cells of the optic nerve.

Boosting a baby's visual perception

Fostering visual perception with play gyms & play arcs

Visual stimuli can be provided in many different guises: This could be a colorful mobile at the changing table or the baby's cot or the game trainer with so many parts to discover, touch and play. Or a colorful play cushion just begging to be examined, and the different effects help to train hand-eye coordination.

Discover all play trainers & play arches

Fostering visual perception with children's books

Colorful pictures are not just for traditional pages of books: There are also buggy books made of fabric, bath books for the bathtub and baby books made of wood, just inviting the little ones to take a look.
Discover all the baby books
The development steps of babies and toddlers