What Does Your Newborn See in His First Few Days
A young baby is aware of a lot more then we used to think in the
past. In fact some of the capabilities of very young children
are astonishing. In the "Good Old Days" people thought that a
newborn was almost blind. They thought a baby couldn't focus and
was more or less colorblind. Meaning that a newborn is only
aware of a fuzzy colorless world. We know now that this is not
the case.
A newborn is not that little being focused only on himself and
his own needs, like hunger, thirst, and other discomfort. From
day 1 a newborn is fairly alert, interested and aware of what is
happening in his surroundings. He is capable of experiencing and
very interested about what is going on is his world. Contrary to
old beliefs a baby is able to focus on objects and people that
are about 10 inches away. Things that are closer of further away
are out of focus, if this were different our newborn would be
highly intimidated by the multitude of stimuli. If a child can
see color from the moment its born is still unknown, but chances
are that he can. And if not he or she will learn in a very short
while.
A natural preference for faces
So your baby sees the same things you see, but of course has no
idea about its meaning. That's something he has to learn. Still
very young children have a clear cut preference for certain
objects. He or she will stare (or gaze if you will) to more
complicated and will show more interest to moving then to static
objects. This is one of the reasons your face is so enormously
interesting to him. The eye contact that he is capable of during
the first few days is very important for the development of his
social skills.
Your baby is programmed so to speak to find your face attractive
and inviting. As his interest in your face grows, his interest
in the rest of the human species will grow with it.
It takes about 8 months before your baby is really capable of
recognizing your face, at that point he or she will temporarily
be scared by unfamiliar faces.