Does your baby notice when you wave across the room at them? No? Well, the thing is, they probably canât see you!
Babies are very short-sighted at first and canât focus on anything much further away than they can reach. So itâs good to stay close when youâre playing and talking with them. Theyâll soon start making eye contact. And after about three months, theyâll begin to look wherever youâre looking too. Theyâll find it easier if you make it super obvious.
Using computers to track where babies are looking, scientists found that young babies will look where youâre looking, if you actually turn your head to look at it. Itâs an amazing skill. You see, by looking where youâre looking, your little one is actually learning about language!
Hereâs why. People tend to talk about what theyâre looking at. So, if you look at a toy and say 'wow, look at that rattle' and baby looks too, youâre helping your baby connect the word ârattleâ with the actual toy! So, to help your baby, make eye contact with them (nice and close, remember) and help them to look where youâre looking!
Look at different objects and talk about them using simple, sing-song sentences. Donât forget to make it really obvious what youâre looking at. All this means theyâll start to link the word youâre using with the thing youâre looking at. You see, babies are clever little detectives ,using everything they can to learn!
Babies' vision is a bit different to adults' - they can't see things unless they're nice and close. But eye contact does play a key role in their learning.
By making eye contact with your baby and looking at the things they're talking about, you can help them make connections between your words and the world around them.
Image caption, Babies are very short-sighted at first. They're unlikely to see much further than they can reach. So it's good to stay close when you're playing and talking with them.
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