If you’re a new parent, you probably find yourself spending a lot of time gazing at your baby—and noticing that your baby is staring right back at you. But why do babies stare?
To find out, we spoke to Angelica Ronald, Professor of Psychology and Genetics at the University of Surrey, and Dr Alice Skelton, Co-Leader of the Sussex Baby Lab. We also heard from parents about their babies' staring habits.
How do babies see the world in their first weeks?
“My newborn watches Mr Teddy, a colour changing night light, when he’s getting changed” - Rebecca in Leeds
“In the first few weeks, babies can most clearly seethings with contrasting dark and light patterns,” says Angelica, “This is why toys and mobiles for young infants are often in bright colours or in black and white contrasting shapes.”
How do babies see the world in their first months?
“For the first few months of life, a baby's vision is very bad, but it develops incredibly quickly in this time and most will have 20/20 vision at about 36 months,” explains Alice, “Babies struggle to see fine detail, especially when they’re very little, but they can see the blurry outline of things.”
How do babies see colour?
“My daughter used to stare at black and white images when she was tiny. I heard they can’t see much when they’re born but can see black and white” - Alice in Lancashire
“It’s a popular misconception that babies can only see in black and white because they are drawn to look at high contrast things,” says Dr Alice.
“They can see some colour from birth (reds, but not blues). And by the time they’re four months old, they see colour in the same way as adults, but it’s like the saturation dial on the world has been turned down, so they need a bigger difference between colours to be able to spot it.”
How do babies see distances differently from adults?
“We take a lot of stuff for granted about seeing as an adult,” says Alice.
“Things like depth, size constancy (is it near or far away), knowing a window is shiny but also see through, are all things we understand as grown ups but all involve combining lots of different signals from the visual world.”
“These parts of vision all develop at different rates. Some visual skills we don’t master until we’re ten years old, some we learn in the first few months!”
When do babies start recognising faces?
“My baby stares at everyone!” - Naomi in Bolton
“Babies have a preference for looking at faces, and face-like objects, a triangle of three dots where there are two for the eyes and one for the mouth, from birth,” says Alice, “They will prefer to look at ‘face-like’ stuff right from the start.”
When do babies start recognising their parents?
“They will look for longer at Mum’s face than a stranger's face from just four months old, but studies have shown it’s the outline of Mum, her hair, or body shape, that helps baby recognise them, rather than the features of the face,” says Alice.
“This makes sense because we know that babies don’t have great fine detail vision, but they are good at seeing the outside edges of objects.“
Why does my baby stare and smile at me?
“When I put my baby in a sling wrap he just stares at me for ages” - Rebecca in Leeds
“Babies love faces – they are very social creatures and so will seek out familiar faces that they care about,” explains Alice.
“They start doing ‘social smiles’ at about two to three months old. These are smiles which are intentional and longer. Babies are excellent statistical learners and the social butterfly babies will have learned that when they smile at someone, people smile back!”
Why do babies stare?
Alice explains several reasons why babies might stare:
Familiarity: “Sometimes babies like to look at familiar things, so they’ll stare for a long time at something they’ve seen thousands of times before.”
Curiosity: “Other times, they stare to learn something new. If they’ve never seen someone wearing glasses, for example, they might want to look for a long time to learn something about this new thing they’ve not seen before.”
Social interaction: “Babies often stare in the hope of getting some sort of interaction back.”
Difficulty looking away: Angelica explains, “Young infants under four months old sometimes seem to find it hard to move their eyes from one thing to another. Scientists sometimes call this ‘sticky fixation’ because it seems like their eyes are ‘stuck’ looking at one object and they cannot shift their attention. Babies typically stop showing sticky fixation after three or four months of age.”
What does staring tell us about a baby’s brain’s development?
“What babies look at tells us a huge amount about baby brain development,” says Alice.
“Generally, infants look at things to learn about the world, so when we measure their looking behaviour we can learn a lot about what they’re trying to learn about. Babies who have just discovered their own hands, for example, might stare at them for ages, but babies who are trying to learn about how different expressions look on different faces might be staring you down on the bus!”
Why do some babies stare more than others?
“Younger infants are more likely to stare than older babies,” says Angelica.
“This is because they are still learning to control their eyes, and they are still being exposed to lots of new, fascinating things. But also, just like adults, babies are all different in how and when they look at things and differ in their attention style.”
Should I worry about my baby staring?
“No not on its own, and it’s not a concern if your child is under four months,” says Angelica.
“It is also common for babies of all ages to stare into space if they are tired - this applies to some adults too! If there are other unusual aspects to their development or they are not reaching milestones then speak to your GP. “
When should you be concerned about a baby staring?
“Staring can be a problem if it is very hard to disengage them, sometimes it’s tricky because they’re so enthralled by what they’re looking at, but it’s when it’s impossible to get them to look away when you show something more interesting to them,” says Dr Skelton.
“Visit your GP if you have concerns, especially if your baby is over four months old and is showing other differences that are causing you concern,” says Professor Ronald.
In case you missed it
How far can newborn babies see? video
Our Speech Lab film demonstrates to parents the focal range of newborn babies, reinforcing the importance of close face-to-face interaction.
