Art for Babies - Stages

Birth to Four Months
When babies are born, they see in black, white and shades of grey. Their vision is blurred and they can only focus on objects which are between 8-12 inches away. Babies begin to focus by looking at faces. In the first weeks, they have to move their entire head if they want to look at an object, but from 8-12 weeks they learn how to scan.
The main areas of visual development are learning how to focus, teaming eye movements, recognising depth and making accurate spatial judgements. As babies cannot move themselves to images which simulate them and promote good visual development, we must present them with bright objects or pictures. Research shows that the stronger the visual signals presented to babies between 0-4 months, the stronger their brain growth in that region. Quite simply, highly contrasting images, repeat patterns and simple forms trigger the visual systems.
Once the visual systems are working efficiently, information is transmitted to the body’s motor centres for the promotion of good balance and co-ordination skills.

Three to Six Months
There is a sharp increase in chromatic sensitivity between 3-4 months and by 4 months you can expect your baby to be seeing in full colour. Interestingly, work done at Nottingham University into colour preference in babies suggested that red and blue appear most popular; although most intensely saturated colours held interest with the exception of green apparently!

Six to Eight Months
By 6 months, babies usually achieve 20-20 vision and can fuse a single image to achieve full binocular vision. Their tracking skills or oculomotility has developed so that they can aim their eyes and make accurate eye jumps from one point to another. They also have the ability to maintain focus and change focus to see near and far objects.

Eight to Twelve Months
From 8 months, babies can judge distance well and perception skills develop such as visual memory and discrimination. Visual perceptual skills are needed to understand and analyse what is seen. Up to 12 months, there is visual motor integration, which is eye-body co-ordination.