Visual Stimulation for Babies

Our babies minds are constantly learning new things. Since they obviously can’t sit down at a desk and read a book, they depend on visual stimulation to help their brains grow. Each one of their five senses are a gateway to their minds. Your baby can hear your voice, feel you touch them, smell you, and taste anything you put in their mouth. Your baby’s vision may be one of the least developed senses at birth. Visual stimulation can have such a huge effect on your growing baby’s nervous system.

Detecting Light

When a baby is born, their retina is not completely developed. If you don’t know what that is, it’s the back layer of the eye that detects light. An adult retina can distinguish more than what a baby can. The only thing a baby can detect are different shades of light and dark in large quantities.

Why Visual Stimulation Is Important

At birth, the nerve cells in your baby’s brain are disorganized and not very well connected. As your child grows, the brain receives input from all five of their senses. This causes the cells to multiply and from a bunch of connections with other nerve cells. This is why visual stimulation is so important. If a baby is kept in the dark, the visual center in their brain would never develop. The optic nerve would then shrivel up and your baby would essentially be blind. If you provide visual input into their eyes constantly, the retina grows, as does the optic nerve and the visual part of your baby’s brain thrives and develops quicker.

What’s The Best Visual Stimulation?

The best way you can stimulate a baby’s vision is by using black and white stripes and light and dark contrasting colors. There’s a pretty cool product by Nissi and Jireh that is meant for visual stimulation along with holding your baby’s binky. A two-for, how can you go wrong with that? They know that the contrasting colors of their plush animals used for holding the pacifier is good for the baby’s eyesight. This is why their 4-in-1 pacifier holder is so popular. While they’re sucking away at the bink, they can play with the plush animal and increase their visual stimulation at the same time.

Visual Play Ideas

There are definitely some fun and creative ways that you can play with your baby while enhancing their vision. You can surround their bed with black and white stripes, such as blankets, sheets, bumpers, and more. You can also surround their play area with the same design. Be sure to buy them black and white striped toys such as mobiles, rattles, that 4-in-1 pacifier holder, and more. You can also incorporate yourself into playtime by wearing stripes for your baby to look at.