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Your Infant's Sensory Abilities

Vision and hearing

Your Infant's Sensory Abilities

Q-tip

Because your baby might like pastels later, feel free to decorate her room in such colors even though she can't see them right away. But add touches that offer sharp contrasts: a black-and-white mobile hanging over the crib, a checkerboard or other black-and-white pattern on the wall next to the changing table, black-and-white toys or stuffed animals. You might also choose to wear clothes that present her with a sharply contrasting pattern to study.

During the first week of life, your baby will have limited vision. She can focus best on objects that are 7 to 12 inches away from her eyes. (Conveniently, this distance approximates the distance of your face when you hold your baby in your arms to feed her.) Within weeks, the range of her sight will expand. Yet although she can now see objects that are farther away, she will probably show interest-through facial expressions or coos and gurgles-only in those objects that remain fairly close.

Most babies can also distinguish between various patterns and shapes. Although they may not be able to make out all of the subtle features of the human face, most babies nonetheless like to look at faces more than any other pattern or shape. Take advantage of your baby's visual preference: Make eye contact often and smile at your baby. She will return the eye contact almost immediately-and in time, she will return the smile, too.

Because newborns best perceive sharply contrasting patterns of light and darkness, the pastel pinks and blues traditionally used to decorate a baby's nursery have little benefit for your baby-at least in her first weeks.

Most babies also have a limited ability to track the movement of objects with their head and eyes or with their eyes alone. Babies can track movement only for a short distance and only if the objects move slowly.

Games such as peekaboo make little sense at this age. If you aren't in the direct line of your baby's sight, you are-for all intents and purposes-gone. Even if you just hide your face behind your hands, your baby no longer knows you're there.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Q-tip

Your baby will probably also like repetitive, rhythmic sounds that mimic the sound of vibrations or the heartbeat that he heard while he was still in the womb. Tapes of heart sounds, the beating of a tom-tom or other drum, and the loud hum of a vacuum cleaner will all be music to your baby's ears.

Most babies have a sensitive sense of hearing, and they pay careful attention to the noises in their world. Your baby can distinguish among a wide variety of different sounds. Like most newborns, he will probably show a particular fondness for human voices in preference to other sounds. Talking softly to your baby will stimulate his sense of hearing in a way he will enjoy.

Babies can track sounds, just as they can track motion. Within several weeks of birth, your baby may even begin to look toward the source of your voice or another favorite sound-a remarkably early coordination of the senses of sight and hearing.

Smell, taste, touch

Your Baby Smells-and Tastes, Too!

Your baby's senses of taste and smell will also be active in the first days and weeks of life. Of course, babies are not gourmets. Your child probably won't experiment with a wide variety of tastes for quite some time. Indeed, breast milk and/or formula should make up your child's entire diet for several months.

Tests have shown, however, that even newborns who are offered a wider variety of tastes demonstrate distinct preferences. Bitter or sour tastes provoke faces or crying from newborns. Not surprisingly, babies tend to have a sweet tooth-a good thing, because both breast milk and formula taste very sweet.

Little is known about a newborn's sense of smell. Yet because the senses of smell and taste are so closely related, babies can probably distinguish among a variety of aromas. Just what babies prefer to smell is difficult to test.

Touch Me

Your newborn's skin, especially his lips and hands, is very sensitive to touch. Long before he can voluntarily reach for objects, your baby nonetheless uses his sense of touch to establish contact with the outside world. By lying on different surfaces and coming into contact with different objects, he discovers the difference between hard and soft, hot and cold, and smooth and rough.

By observing your child's responses, you can discover the textures and temperatures he prefers. Even without testing, however, you can safely assume that he likes being held close, cuddled, and kept warm.

What Your Newborn Can Do

Your baby has an extremely limited repertoire of activities, but don't judge her too harshly. She's expending an awful lot of energy simply absorbing and processing information through her senses, which leaves little energy left for, say, playing tennis, reading Shakespeare, or planting a flower bed.