How far can babies see at 6 months

Your Baby's Hearing, Vision, and Other Senses: 6 Months (for Parents)

Babies this age are honing all five senses, understanding and learning more and more from what they see, hear, and feel.

What Can My Baby See?

Babies this age can see much farther away (several feet or more) than just a few months ago. They can usually focus without going cross-eyed and can tell the difference between different colors.

Your baby is becoming much more aware of the environment. He or she can now follow the course of a rolling ball and watch the quick movements of an older sibling playing nearby. You may see your baby staring in concentration while holding a toy or studying his or her own hands. Hand-eye coordination is improving, so watch as your little one stares for a while at an object, then slowly reaches out to get it.

Help improve your baby's sight skills with these tips:

• If your baby has been looking at the same toys or crib mobile for several months, now is a good time to change the scenery. By this age, most babies start to pull themselves up to a sitting position, so if you have a mobile over the crib or wall hangings within reach, remove them so your baby doesn't get hurt.
• Babies this age enjoy more complex patterns and color variations. Try reading books with large, brightly colored pictures to your baby, who will enjoy staring at the pages.
• Stimulate your baby's vision with trips out into the world. Walks in the neighborhood, a trip to the supermarket, or an outing to the local zoo all provide wonderful opportunities for your baby to see new things.

What Can My Baby Hear?

Hearing is crucial to developing the ability to talk, and now your baby is picking out the parts of speech.

When younger, your baby understood your meaning through the tone of your voice: soothing tones made your baby stop crying, agitated tones meant something was wrong. Now, your baby can hear and pick up on the different sounds you make and the way words form sentences. In the next few months, your baby will respond to "no" and recognize and respond to his or her own name.

Babies this age also are cooing and may start to babble and make more attempts to imitate sounds. Make no mistake, these are your baby's early attempts at speaking and should be encouraged as much as possible. So repeat sounds you hear your baby making and introduce simple words that apply to everyday life. Have "conversations" with your baby and wait for a pause in the babble to "answer." The give-and-take of these early discussions sets the stage for your baby's first real words.

First Tastes

If they haven't already, many babies begin eating solid foods around this time. Introduce one new item at a time and wait several days before trying something else new. This will help you pinpoint any food allergies that may happen, and also discover which tastes your baby likes best.

While babies naturally favor sweet tastes, you'll want your baby to be exposed to a variety of foods. It may take several tries before your baby starts to enjoy a new food, so don't give up after the first or second attempt if he or she doesn't seem to like it.

Why Is Touch Important?

Babies learn about the world through touch. When you cuddle or kiss your baby, your baby learns that he or she is safe, secure, and loved. When your baby feels a cool breeze on the cheek, he or she learns about the environment.

The opportunities for exercising your baby's sense of touch at this age are endless, even during the course of a regular day. Your baby will enjoy toys and books with different textures. See if your baby likes to touch the silky trim of the baby blanket, or feel the texture of a carpet. Let him or her safely explore surroundings.

Don't forget how important the feel of a gentle caress or a tender kiss is, and hold your baby when you are able.

If You're Worried

In the next few months, your baby should be responding to more and more sights and sounds. Talk to your doctor if your baby doesn't seem to:

• recognize you by sight
• be interested in looking at any new books, toys, or pictures
• have good control of eye motion, or one or both eyes turn in or out consistently

Also speak to your doctor if your baby's eyes seem very sensitive to light or tear up often. An eye exam may be necessary if you have a family history of eye diseases or vision problems.

You'll also want to discuss with your doctor any concerns you have about your baby's hearing. Warning signs of hearing problems to look for include:

• no response to sound (for example, doesn't turn in direction of loud noise or familiar sounds)
• response to only some sounds, not all (some children can hear certain pitches, some hear in only one ear)
• does not laugh out loud
• does not smile or make sounds when spoken to

When caught early, many vision and hearing problems can be treated successfully, so be sure to report any concerns you have to your doctor immediately.

Infant Vision: Birth to 24 Months of Age

Babies learn to see over a period of time, much like they learn to walk and talk. They are not born with all the visual abilities they need in life. The ability to focus their eyes, move them accurately, and use them together as a team must be learned. Also, they need to learn how to use the visual information the eyes send to their brain in order to understand the world around them and interact with it appropriately.

From birth, babies begin exploring the wonders in the world with their eyes. Even before they learn to reach and grab with their hands or crawl and sit-up, their eyes are providing information and stimulation important for their development.

Eye and vision problems in infants can cause developmental delays. It is important to detect any problems early to ensure babies have the opportunity to develop the visual abilities they need to grow and learn. Parents play an important role in helping to assure their child's eyes and vision can develop properly.

Baby's first eye exam

Even if no eye or vision problems are apparent, at about age 6 months, you should take your baby to a doctor of optometry for his or her first thorough eye examination. Your doctor of optometry will test for many things, including nearsightedness, farsightedness, or astigmatism as well as eye movement ability and eye alignment. Your doctor will also check the overall health of the eyes. Eye health problems are not common, but if present early detection and treatment offer the best option.

InfantSEE ^® managed by Optometry Cares ^®—The AOA Foundation is the American Optometric Association's public health program designed to ensure that eye and vision care becomes an integral part of infant wellness care to improve a child's quality of life. Under this program, participating doctors of optometry provide a comprehensive infant eye assessment between 6 and 12 months of age as a no-cost public service. Visit the InfantSEE website to learn more and locate a doctor in your area who can provide a free infant assessment.

Steps in infant vision development

At birth, babies can't see as well as older children or adults. Their eyes and visual system aren't fully developed. But significant improvement occurs during the first few months of life. The following are some milestones to watch for in vision and child development. It is important to remember that not every child is the same and some may reach certain milestones at different ages.

• At birth, babies' vision is abuzz with all kinds of visual stimulation. While they may look intently at a highly contrasted target, babies have not yet developed the ability to easily tell the difference between two targets or move their eyes between the two images. Their primary focus is on objects 8 to 10 inches from their face or the distance to the parent's face.
• During the first months of life, the eyes start working together and vision rapidly improves. Eye-hand coordination begins to develop as the infant starts tracking moving objects with his or her eyes and reaching for them. By eight weeks, babies begin to more easily focus their eyes on the faces of a parent or other person near them.
• For the first two months of life, an infant's eyes are not well coordinated and may appear to wander or to be crossed. This is usually normal. However, if an eye appears to turn in or out constantly, an evaluation is warranted.
• Babies should begin to follow moving objects with their eyes and reach for things at around three months of age.

• During these months, control of eye movements and eye-body coordination skills continue to improve.
• Depth perception, which is the ability to judge if objects are nearer or farther away than other objects, is not present at birth. It is not until around the fifth month that the eyes are capable of working together to form a three-dimensional view of the world and begin to see in-depth.
• Although an infant's color vision is not as sensitive as an adult's, it is generally believed that babies have good color vision by 5 months of age.
• Most babies start crawling at about 8 months old, which helps further develop eye-hand-foot-body coordination. Early walkers who did minimal crawling may not learn to use their eyes together as well as babies who crawl a lot.

• At around 9 months of age, babies begin to pull themselves up to a standing position. By 10 months of age, a baby should be able to grasp objects with thumb and forefinger.
• By twelve months of age, most babies will be crawling and trying to walk. Parents should encourage crawling rather than early walking to help the child develop better eye-hand coordination. • Babies can now judge distances fairly well and throw things with precision.

• By 2 years of age, a child's eye-hand coordination and depth perception should be well developed.
• Children this age are highly interested in exploring their environment and in looking and listening. They recognize familiar objects and pictures in books and can scribble with crayons or pencils.

Signs of eye and vision problems

The presence of eye and vision problems in infants is rare. Most babies begin life with healthy eyes and start to develop the visual abilities they will need throughout life without difficulty. But occasionally, eye health and vision problems can develop. Parents need to look for the following signs that may be indications of eye and vision problems:

• Excessive tearing may indicate blocked tear ducts.
• Red or encrusted eyelids could be a sign of an eye infection.
• Constant eye turning may signal a problem with eye muscle control.
• Extreme sensitivity to light may indicate an elevated pressure in the eye.
• The appearance of a white pupil may indicate the presence of eye cancer.

The appearance of any of these signs should require immediate attention by a doctor of optometry.

What parents can do to help with visual development

There are many things parents can do to help their baby's vision develop properly. The following are some examples of age-appropriate activities that can assist an infant's visual development.

• Use a nightlight or other dim lamp in the baby's room.
• Change the crib's position frequently and change the child's position in it.
• Keep reach-and-touch toys within the baby's focus, about eight to twelve inches.
• Talk to the baby while walking around the room.
• Alternate right and left sides with each feeding.

• Hang a mobile, crib gym, or various objects across the crib for the baby to grab, pull and kick.
• Give the baby plenty of time to play and explore on the floor.
• Provide plastic or wooden blocks that can be held in the hands.
• Play patty cake and other games, moving the baby's hands through the motions while saying the words aloud.

• Play hide and seek games with toys or your face to help the baby develop visual memory.
• Name objects when talking to encourage the baby's word association and vocabulary development skills.
• Encourage crawling and creeping.

• Roll a ball back and forth to help the child track objects with the eyes visually.
• Give the child building blocks and balls of all shapes and sizes to play with to boost fine motor skills and small muscle development.
• Read or tell stories to stimulate the child's ability to visualize and pave the way for learning and reading skills.

Find a Doctor of Optometry

Article | How babies see

The way a baby sees the world around him depends on his parents. It is in your power to teach a child in his first months to look at life with "wide eyes".

Of the five senses that a person has, vision plays a leading role in his development. We receive most of the information about the world around us through our eyes. The visual system is laid down even in the prenatal period, but it is actively formed and "ripens" already after birth, in the first year of a baby's life. At this time, it is especially important to pay attention to the development of vision, since it is directly related to the development of the brain. nine0005

It is known that the efficiency of the brain is determined not by the number of neurons, but by the number of connections (synapses) between them. In the first year of a person's life, these connections are formed at an incredible rate. And the more visual information a child receives, the more actively the development of different structures of his brain will go.

Any visual impairment in infancy often causes a significant lag in the development of the child, since the rest of the senses are not able to fully compensate for the lack of information. nine0005

Picture of the world

The very first visual images that a person perceives are faces. “We recognize the “nose-mouth” facial pattern innately - this is a species-specific signal,” says Vyacheslav Dubynin, Doctor of Biological Sciences, specialist in brain physiology. “Moreover, we now know that it’s not just the face pattern that is recognized, but the main facial expressions: grief, fear, rage, smile. The ancient Greek masks of tragedy and comedy, the emoticon - this innately affects our secondary visual cortex, it is innately significant. That is why it is so important for us and is also directly connected with the centers of positive and negative emotions.” nine0005

The main stimuli for the development of the baby's visual system are the faces of mom and dad. If so, communicate and talk with the child at any opportunity, as often as possible, "show yourself in front of him."

Seize the moment

The organs of vision of a newborn are already formed, but the work of the entire visual system will be "tuned" during the first six months of life. The kid needs to learn to fix his gaze, move both eyes at the same time (this is called “friendly movement”), determine the depth of space and establish a connection between vision and touch. nine0005

At this time, the eyeball enlarges, connections are formed with the parts of the brain responsible for receiving and processing visual information. From the point of view of psychophysiology, this period is a critical phase in the formation of the visual system. Moreover, the very act of “looking” serves as a stimulus for the development of vision. That is, the more images are projected onto the retina, the better the eye develops.

Black and white cinema

We have the ability to recognize colors from birth, but the newborn does not yet know how to use it. But he perceives well and looks at contrasting black-and-white images with clear contours with pleasure. You can make such pictures yourself and conduct "classes" with your baby with their help. nine0005

As a result of such exercises, the child will acquire two important skills in the first months of life: he will learn to fix an object and follow it with his eyes.

For classes, you can put the baby on any surface (changing table, crib, large bed), but so that the light source (window or lamp) is behind his head.

0–2 months

Newborn limited field of view — 30 degrees left and right, 10 degrees up and down, depth — no more than 90 cm from the face. Show your child images based on this data. Contrasting black and white patterns attract the attention of the baby, because during this period the rods (cells in the retina of the eye that distinguish between weak light, black and white colors) are better developed than cones (cells responsible for perceiving colors).

For the first lessons, you will need pictures with simple geometric shapes, checkers (like a chessboard), stripes, straight and broken lines.

Already at the age of 10 days, the baby is able to keep a moving object in the field of vision, and at 3 weeks old it can fixate on a stationary object and on the face of an adult who is talking to him. nine0005

By the end of the first month, he tries to follow a slowly moving black and white object or his mother's face at a distance of 20–30 cm.

To practice fixation : show your baby black and white drawings. They can also be attached to the sides of the crib.

Gradually replace simple pictures with more complex ones. So the baby will learn to focus his eyes. Among the pictures you can place black and white photos of mom and dad. nine0005

If you have attached a mobile above the crib, you can replace the colorful hanging toys with black and white ones for now.

For tracking exercise : show the picture to the baby at a distance of 30 cm from the eyes. After the child notices it and fixes their eyes on it, slowly start moving the picture to the right, then to the left. The second exercise: bring the drawing closer to the baby and remove it again (from 20 to 100 cm).

3 months

The baby can already clearly focus on the object, but it is still difficult for him to smoothly and continuously follow him if he moves in an arc. Tracking objects in a circle can be trained using a mobile, removing all toys from it, except for one. nine0005

At this age, the baby is already truly happy and smiles at the sight of something familiar. He follows with pleasure the face of an adult or an object moving in all directions, studies his hands with interest.

The baby still does not feel the volume of objects, so often he cannot grasp the object he is reaching for. This happens because the baby's world is still two-dimensional.

Binocular vision will develop later, and then the baby will learn to appreciate the depth of space. nine0005

Now you can place pictures in all the places where you can carry the baby in your arms. The baby is already able to visually focus while in an upright position.

4 months

Now the child may like more complex drawings, with curved and curved lines and shapes. The kid remembers what he saw, follows the moving object well.

During this period, the formation of color perception occurs, because the cones in the retina begin to work more actively. At first, the baby is able to perceive red and yellow colors, a little later - green and blue. The main thing is that the color is bright. Pastel shades, which parents usually prefer, will not impress the child. nine0005

To fix the color, show the baby alternately with an interval of 30 seconds two pictures, first with the same image, but different colors, and then vice versa - the same color, but with different patterns.

Take a white sheet and a picture. First, show the baby a picture at a distance of 30–50 cm. He must fix it. Then cover half of the image with a white sheet. After 30 seconds, show the entire drawing again. In the next exercise, cover the entire picture with a white sheet. nine0005

Now take two different pictures and a white sheet. Fold them like a deck: the first picture - a white sheet - the second picture. Show them in turn, making sure that the baby fixes the image. You will see how surprised he is when he sees another drawing after the white sheet!

At the age of 4 months, the child is able to predict events. He used to keep screaming from hunger until he grabbed a nipple or got a bottle. Now, when he sees his mother, he can either shut up or start screaming even louder. The child establishes a connection between visual impressions and consciousness. nine0005

5–6 months

By this age, the images transmitted from both eyes begin to connect, and thus binocular (stereoscopic) vision develops. Now the child is able to visually perceive the depth of space. The kid focuses well on both near and distant objects. Six-month-old babies are very fond of looking at more complex images, ornate ornaments and patterns. This is a great training for the visual system - in such pictures there is a certain rhythm, symmetrical and asymmetric areas, orderliness and structure. nine0005

Show your child two different pictures at the same time so that he can look at one and then the other.

Make a kind of screen out of a white sheet. Hold it in one hand. Take a picture or a toy in your other hand. Show it to your child, let him fix his eyes on her. Move the picture (toy) so that at some point it disappears behind the screen, and then appears on the other side.

The child should develop an understanding that an object that has disappeared from the field of vision does not cease to exist and continues to move. When the baby has mastered this skill, he will look to the place of the future appearance of the picture from behind the sheet. nine0005

Everything is good in moderation

Moderation and pleasure are the main things in activities with a baby. Both mother and baby should be in a good mood. Play with your child when he is happy, calm, not hungry or tired. You should not get carried away only with visual reactions and orientation. For harmonious development, it is important to use all the organs of perception: hearing, touch, smell, taste. And remember that the main stimulus for the development of the visual system is the smile on the mother's face.

Sources:

PostNauka portal

Family website 7ya.ru

Photo: Unsplash; blog "Katerina Taberko's Bookcase"

The vision of a newborn child

Newborn children see in a completely different way than adults. FROM as the child grows, his visual system also develops, for the final it takes about 8 months to form.

Eyes the child is able to see immediately after birth, but his brain, which processes and forms visual images until it is able to correctly decrypt information. The child grows, his brain develops, and at the same time and visual abilities. How does this happen? nine0005

1 month. At that age the child's eyes cannot move in concert. The pupils often converge on bridge of the nose, but parents should not panic that this is strabismus. Already to at the end of 1 month of life, the baby learns to fix his gaze on the interesting object.

2 months. Starts actively develop color vision. Shades are faintly distinguishable, but good perceived contrasting colors. Children of this age love bright toys and keep a good eye on them. nine0005

4 months. Appears spatial perception, the child begins to understand that objects have different shapes and can be located at different distances from it. Coordination the movements of the newborn are being improved, now he can easily pick up, subject of interest to him.

5 months. Improving color perception, the child is able to see the difference in shades, even in small sized items. nine0005

8 months. Visual the abilities of a toddler of this age are indistinguishable from those of an adult person. By 8 months, as a rule, the final color of the rainbow is also formed. shells of the eyes, however, this process can be delayed up to 3 years.

Parents are advised to be attentive to visual abilities of your child and, in case of developmental disabilities, show him ophthalmologist. What to focus on: nine0005

· At 3-4 months, the baby is not able to follow the eyes behind moving objects.