3 month old black baby boy8/17/2023 It's important to diagnose and treat eye problems early on because some are difficult or impossible to correct later. If the doctor detects any problems, or if your child's family has a strong history of eye problems, they may refer you to a pediatric ophthalmologist. For more on what to expect when the doctor checks your child's eyes, see our article on eye exams for kids. Once your child is 3 or 4, the doctor can examine how well your child can see (their visual acuity), using charts with pictures or letters. The doctor will check the structure and alignment of your child's eyes and their ability to move them correctly and look for signs of congenital eye conditions or other problems.īe sure to let your baby's doctor know if either you or your partner has a strong family history of serious eye problems – particularly problems that surfaced in childhood. Make sure the doctor takes a look at your child's eyes at every regularly scheduled well-baby visit and well-child visit. How to encourage your baby's vision development Though their attention is more focused on objects that are close by, their vision is strong enough to recognize people and objects across the room. Your baby's vision – between 20/200 and 20/400 at birth – is almost adult in its clarity and depth perception at this point. They can probably distinguish between similar bold colors and will start working on more subtle differences in pastels. This is evidence of their budding understanding of object permanence (knowing that things exist even when they can't see them at the moment), which is why they love to play peekaboo. They may even be able to recognize something after seeing only part of it. Your baby is getting better at spotting very small items and tracking moving objects. If your baby can't track an object as it moves across their field of vision or make steady eye contact with you by 4 months old, let their doctor know. You can help them practice by offering easy-to-grasp toys like rattles (otherwise they'll go for your easy-to-grasp hair, glasses, or earrings). Until now, it was tough for them to locate an object's position, size, and shape, then get a message from their brain to their hand to reach out and grasp it.Īt 4 months, they have both the motor development to handle the task and the maturity in their brain circuitry to coordinate all the moves needed to accomplish it. Your baby's beginning to develop depth perception. Encourage this development by showing your baby pictures, photos, books, and brightly-colored toys. As a result, they'll probably begin to show a preference for bright, primary colors and more detailed and complicated designs. They're also getting better at telling the difference between colors. They'll attempt to reach and eventually grab things. Your baby is now starting to perfect their ability to follow moving objects with their eyes. For the next few months, their brain will be at work learning to distinguish colors. That's one reason they preferred black-and-white or high-contrast patterns. Your baby could see bright colors from birth, but they had difficulty distinguishing similar tones, such as red and orange. They may also enjoy playing eyes-to-eyes with you: With your face very close to them, move your head slowly from side to side, with your eyes and their eyes locked. A rattle passed in front of their face will often transfix them as they explore this newfound ability. This month or next, they'll be able to consistently focus both eyes and track a moving object. Appropriately enough, your face is the most fascinating thing to your baby at this age (followed by high-contrast patterns such as a checkerboard), so be sure to give them plenty of up-close time.Īt birth, your baby didn't know how to use their eyes in tandem, so their eyes may have wandered randomly or even crossed now and then. They can detect light, shapes, and movement, but it's all pretty blurry. How baby vision developsĪt first your baby can't focus farther than 8 to 12 inches away – just far enough to make out the face of the person holding them. Though your baby starts out life being able to see only as far as your face when you hold them, their range of clarity grows steadily, month by month. Your newborn can see bright colors at birth and will be able to tell the difference between colors (especially red and green) by the time they're 3 to 4 months old.Īs their brain develops, so does their ability to see clearly, giving them the tools they need to understand and manage their environment. While your newborn's eyes are physically capable of seeing just fine at birth, their brain isn't ready to process all that visual information, so things stay fuzzy for a while.
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