A newborns sight

At birth, a newborn's eyesight is between 20/200 and 20/400. Their eyes are sensitive to bright light, so they're more likely to open their eyes in low light. Don't worry if your baby's eyes sometimes cross or drift outward (go "wall-eyed"). This is normal until your baby's vision improves and eye muscles strengthen.

Newborns are short-sighted

Newborn babies can only see clearly about 20cm to 30cm (8in to 12in) in front of their faces. Everything else is a blur of light, shape and movement. Fortunately, this is the perfect distance for your baby to gaze into your eyes as you feed her!

By the time your baby's one month or two months old, she'll be able to focus her eyes on a toy when you move it in front of her face. And by the end of the fourth trimester, she'll be able to see close-up colors and shapes much more clearly.

Help your baby to explore her developing vision by showing her toys with bold patterns in bright, vivid colors.

A newborns sight example:

What Can My Baby See?

Your baby sees things best from 8 to 12 inches away. This is the perfect distance for gazing up into the eyes of mom or dad (a favorite thing to do!). Any farther than that, and newborns see mostly blurry shapes because they're nearsighted. At birth, a newborn's eyesight is between 20/200 and 20/400.

Their eyes are sensitive to bright light, so they're more likely to open their eyes in low light. Don't worry if your baby's eyes sometimes cross or drift outward (go "wall-eyed"). This is normal until your baby's vision improves and eye muscles strengthen.

Give your baby lots of appealing things to look at. After human faces, bright colors, contrasting patterns, and movement are the things newborns like to look at most. Black-and-white pictures or toys will keep your baby's interest longer than objects or pictures with lots of similar colors.

When quiet and alert, your baby should be able to follow the slow movement of your face or an object.

If You're Worried

If you want a little reassurance that your baby's senses are working well, you can do some unscientific testing for yourself.

When quiet and alert without other distractions, will your baby look at yo

ur face or a toy? If your baby's eyes seem to cross more than just briefly, be sure to tell your doctor. Also tell the doctor if your baby's eyes appear cloudy or filmy, or if you notice unusual eye movements.

Most newborns will startle if surprised by a loud noise nearby. Other ways to rest assured your baby is hearing well: Does your baby calm down when he or she hears your voice? Does your baby turn to the sound of a rattle? Does your baby react to soft lullabies or other music?

Even if your child passed the newborn hearing screen, talk to your doctor if you have concerns about your baby's hearing. The sooner a potential problem is caught, the better it can be treated.

In the first year of life, your baby’s vision develops quickly, but is very different than yours — from colors to clarity and more.

As your baby leaves the dark, quiet comfort of your womb and enters the bright, noisy world around her, just what can she see? The short answer: Not much — but that will change, and fast. In the first six months of life, baby’s eyesight develops rapidly, since vision is closely linked to brain development. So as your baby’s brain matures in leaps and bounds, so does her eyesight. While it does, enjoy seeing baby take it all in as she reaches a few key milestones in visual development.

Birth to a few weeks old

Vision is fuzzy

In utero, baby’s eyes begin growing at around week 4 of pregnancy and can perceive light at around week 16. But a fetus’s eyelids remain closed until 26 weeks gestation — and even then, the view from the womb is pretty limited. That means when your baby enters her newly expanded world, it’s a kaleidoscope of fuzzy images to her unaccustomed eyes. At first, the farthest your baby will be able to see is the distance from your arms to your face (about 8 to 10 inches).

Will your baby look at you?

Some newborns do look directly at your face after birth (“Hi, Mom!”), while others keep those peepers tightly squeezed shut (“Excuse me, I was sleeping!”). Both reactions are perfectly normal: While some infants naturally focus on faces and objects, others need a little more time to adjust to the newly expanded world around them. Your own baby’s pace will depend on everything from her gestational age to her individual personality.

Loving faces

Either way, for the first month baby’s eyes will, for the most part, be closed as she sleeps for long stretches of time. When her eyes do open, she’s can’t yet track moving objects. Still, babies of this age generally do love looking at faces — so make sure to give your little one lots of up-close-and-personal time with you and other caretakers.