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Home » Eye Library » Children’s Vision » Your Infant’s Visual Development

Your Infant’s Visual Development

Your baby’s visual system is not fully developed at birth and continues to develop gradually over the first days and months of life. In fact, from your baby’s perspective at birth, the world is black and white, blurry and rather flat. As the days and months go on, they begin to focus, move their eyes and start to see the world around them. While each child will grow and develop on his or her own schedule, knowing an infant’s vision milestones will help you ensure that your infant is on track to achieving good vision and eye health and start treatment early if there is a problem.

Birth – 3 months

Because newborn babies’ eyes and visual system are underdeveloped, they can not focus their eyes on close objects or perceive depth or color. Babies need to learn to move, focus and coordinate eye movements to team the eyes (have them move together as a team). The brain also needs to learn how to process the visual information from the eyes to understand and interact with the world. In fact, until about 3 months, the optimal distance a baby can focus on is about 8 – 10 inches from their face, about the distance their parents face will be during feeding.

Your baby will start to be able to perceive color within the first 2-3 weeks, however it will take a few months to learn how to focus and use the eyes, to track objects, differentiate between two objects and shift from one object to the other. During this time you may notice that the eyes appear crossed and do not work together or team. This is quite common at the early stages of development, however if one eye appears to be constantly turned in or out, seek a doctor’s evaluation.

At around three months, as hand-eye coordination begins to develop, a baby should be able to follow a moving target with their eyes and reach for objects.

4-6 Months

By 6 months, your baby will begin to move his eyes with more speed and accuracy, seeing at farther distances and focusing well. Color vision should be fully developed and the eyes should be able to work as a team and follow moving objects with relative ease. Hand-eye coordination and depth perception should be greatly improved as your baby will begin to understand the 3-dimensional world around them.

At six months, you should take your baby for his or her first comprehensive eye exam to ensure that the eyes are developing on track and there are no signs of congenital or infant eye disease.

7-12 Months

At this stage of development babies will be coordinating vision and body movements by crawling, grasping, standing and exploring the surrounding world. They should be able judge distances accurately, throw a ball toward a target and pick up a small object with their fingers. Delays in motor development can sometimes indicate a vision problem.

The First Eye Exam

While at 6 months, your baby will not be able to read an eye chart, eye doctors can perform an infant eye exam through non-verbal testing to assess visual acuity (for nearsightedness, farsightedness or astigmatism), eye teaming abilities and eye alignment. The eye doctor will also be able to see inside the eye for any signs of disease or problems that could affect eye or vision health.

InfantSEE®

InfantSEE® is a public health program in which participating optometrists provide a free comprehensive infant eye exam to babies between 6 and 12 months of age. The program was initiated to provide accessible eye and vision care for infants to ensure they have the best chances for normal development and quality of life.

If your child has any unusual symptoms such as excessive tearing, constant eye misalignment, red or crusty eyes or extreme light sensitivity consult an eye doctor as soon as possible.

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COVID-19 UPDATES

In an effort to further protect our patients and staff, we are taking the following precautions at our office:

When you arrive in the office for your appointment:

  1. The door will remain locked and open only for patients that have been initially screened
  2. Careful Screening: All persons entering the office will be screened for symptoms of COVID-19 by 1) being asked a series of screening questions and 2) their temperature will be taken before entering the office. If the patient’s temperature is greater or equal to 100.4 degrees F (38 degrees C), that person will be denied entrance and asked to see their primary care physician.
  3. No additional family, friends, etc will be allowed to accompany the patient into the office
    1. *Exception: children and others requiring assistance – 1 single parent or accompanied guardian allowed
  4. We ask that you please wear cloth or medical MASKS when entering our office. A mask will be required for entry through the door.
  5. We will be implementing a *$50 “No Show Fee”* for no shows or cancellations if we are not notified at least 24 hours prior to your scheduled appointment.

Safety and Sanitation Precautions:

  • Physical/Social Distancing: 6+ feet separations will be maintained whenever possible during the encounter while in the office
  • Regular Sanitation: All door handles, surfaces in exam rooms and common areas, restrooms, and medical equipment (as always) will be regularly sanitized after any contact. Surfaces will be wiped down with sanitizing mixture or at least 70% isopropyl alcohol or bleach wipes. Sanitizers are also being used rigorously on hands, surfaces, phones, computer keyboard/mouse etc between use.
  • Hand Washing and Glove Use: All doctors and staff will be using gloves and will be washing hands in compliance with the CDC using warm water and anti-microbial soap before coming into contact with any patient.
  • Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): We have secured masks for all our team and are asking all persons in the office to wear a face-mask at all times. Patients that are coming in for care will be asked to please bring/wear a mask for entry into our office.

 

  • *No Touch Delivery – Picking Up Eyewear and Contact Lenses*: We will be offering curbside pick up of all glasses, eyewear and contact lenses. We will pre-adjust glasses so that the frames are balanced and even. We are not offering customized fitting at this time (see below, Frame Adjustments). Please call the office when you arrive at the office to pick up your eyewear and a staff member will bring your eyewear or contact lenses to the front door.

 

Frame Selections, Adjustments, Repairs and Dispensing:

  • Frame Selections – Reduced Touching: During selection of eyewear frames, only staff will be allowed to remove sanitized frames from the display. All frames will be sanitized before being replaced back onto the frame board. Opticians will hand the frame to the patient and patient will put them on. All frame selections and adjustments will be done with gloved hands.
  • Sanitization of Frames: All frames that are tried on by patients will be put into the ultra-violet (UV-C) sanitizer tray and run for 1-2 minutes.
  • Frame Adjustments: We will be postponing any eyewear/glasses adjustments at this time due to the close proximity and physical contact needed for that service.
  • Frame Repairs: We can repair glasses that have been significantly bent or broken (if possible to fix).

 

Although there may be some changes to your normal visit to our office, we assure you that we are doing our best to follow all CDC, California Department of Public Health, California Optometric Association and local public health guidelines to keep our patients, staff and community safe without compromising our standard of excellence and quality during this time.

We ask that you all are mindful of the following precautions. We are all in this together. We look forward to SEEing you all soon!

 

Doctors Ideta, Mukai, Yamamoto and the Aloha Family Optometric Team