How does eye contact effect baby development? 

 

Windows to the soul

Eyes are windows of the soul. To look into the eye of your baby is to look into their hearts. And when parents and their babies look at each other, something magical happens, the strongest spell of deep emotional connection develops. Do you want a deeper understanding of this magical bond?

In this article I'll be talking about when babies start making eye contact and give their visual response. Enjoy the reading.

Eye Development inside the womb

Fetus completes its eye development by the end of the second trimester. At this stage, if the mother experiences a bright light on her big tummy then she might end up with a kick by her loved one inside. Now, this tiny creature can sense light and dark surroundings.

Welcoming A New Soul

When parents greet their babies in this world, they have very underdeveloped visual systems. Apart from pee, poop, sleeping and eating the newborn can sense some sharp colours and blurry images. Babies are so fast and smart that within 24 hours they start imitating motherly expressions. With each passing day, eye muscles of little one strengthen resulting in improved well-focused vision.

Beginning of Mutual Eye gaze

This intellectual and emotional connection starts to begin at the age of three months. According to the latest research babies at this age start recognizing their caretakers, black and white hangings, and close surroundings. When we look straight into their eyes, they smile back at us. They will be happy and calm when parents are around them. These gestures show the proper development of sight and vision in a  newborn.

Four months

By this age, a baby can visualize a wide range of dangling toy colors. Hand-eye coordination begins, and a better understanding of the visual world starts. The newborn can associate her milk and feeder, peep and pamper, etc. At this stage, even she can recognize her father, mother, and favorite toys. 

Five to eight months

By this period, a baby is fully aware of his environment, friends, and family. He can follow our moods and enjoy our funny expressions. A newborn has developed a proper signal transferring eye contact. Now she can look into our eyes and 7read our expressions and communicate with us about his feelings of love and fear.

First Birthday

Marking twelve months in this world of wonders, the baby has developed interactive vision. Her eyes can gaze and track the movement with high efficacy. Your little angel can now differentiate between all color shades and object sizes. She will enjoy mutual playing and will give her parents countless expressions by using her senses.

Eye Contact In Babies And  Behaviour Development

Connection building through eyes is very important for interacting between a parent and baby. Eye contact is a true indicator of a baby’s neurological development. It affects her social and emotional learning abilities. By looking into the eyes, a baby can exchange a plethora of emotions. Mutual eye gaze helps an infant in effective learning and communication.

Fast signalling of neurons

The University Of Cambridge has reported that when an infant receives eye gaze signals from their loved ones their neuronal activity increases. This results in a quick transfer of information and helps in building intelligent quotient (IQ).

Connection building

Another important mark of eye contact in babies is that it helps in making connections and associations between two objects. These associations develop a strong link between sight and word learning. This development milestone is a true depiction of rapid development of cognition in infants

Avoidance of eye gaze in a newborn

Progressive vision development may show some time variations among babies. If your child is not giving you a proper eye gaze after a few months, then it may be something to be worried about. If your baby is not responding to visual stimuli at the age of 4-6 months then you may want to consult with your GP, there may be a chance to spot autism really early on. 

Autistic babies have difficulty making eye contact and show some of the following symptoms:

• They will not respond to your smile.
• Stay calm in your absence and comfortable with strangers.
• They are unable to recognize your gestures and intentions.
• They will not follow your hand movements.

Autism and its early diagnosis:

Early diagnosis of this disease may help a child in proper treatment by applied behaviour analysis (ABA). Parents should be alert about their child's activities with age for timely diagnosis and productive treatment.

How parents can reinforce eye to eye connection

Communicating with baby eyes is one of the most beautiful feelings for a mother. Mutual love sharing through eyes is pure and adorable. Parents can encourage their little souls by spending ⅔ minutes a day gazing deeply into your little one's eyes and synchronizing your breathing. 

Tips and tricks for making strong eye bonding

Parents can better understand their child's feelings and needs especially mothers. Spending a lot of time with a baby will help in the best tuning of mutual eye gaze. Here we are sharing some expert’s opinion that will  help in a better eye to eye connection:

• Babies have short eye contact so don’t wish for a long eye gaze at this early age.
• You can reinforce the eye gaze signal when a baby is feeling happy, active and alert.
• Don’t mess up your efforts when she is angry, tired, and hungry.
• By making sounds and loving gestures you can encourage a child to initiate eye contact.
• Keeping your baby in your arms can help her to focus in your eyes and enjoy your expressions.
• Eye to eye connection is more effective when accompanied by touch and sound.
• Using colorful toys and hangings can also help your baby to make joyful eye contact.

To wrap it up

Eye contact is incredibly important for the brain development of your little one, not only does it introduce the child to empathy but actually builds more connections in the brain, take some time to encourage this in your little one and you’ll have a deeper more loving connection with your little angel. 

Thanks for reading and have a great day.