Your Baby’s 5 Senses and How to Stimulate Each of Them

Stimulating each of your baby’s five senses is important in supporting their cerebral development. The way infants perceive things is a lot different to adults, but their senses play a big role in how they take in information and bond with their parents, amongst other things. So, let’s go through each of them one by one and the things you can do to stimulate each of them and support their development.

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Vision

When they are born, babies are only able to see around 8 to 12 inches away and their vision is fuzzy, mainly made up of shapes and shades. Over time, they develop depth perception and colour. You should try decorating the nursery in bright colours and interesting patterns. Adjust the position of the bassinet regularly so your baby can see different things in front of them. Simply leaning close into them and making different faces helps them to recognise you. When you begin taking them outside, give them the opportunity to take in different environments to enhance their vision.

Hearing

Even though hearing is more developed than vision at birth, you should regularly talk, read and sing to your baby, which helps to support language development and bonding. Again, taking them outside is a great way to get them in direct contact with a whole range of different noises. And if you find that your baby struggles to sleep at night, a white-noise machine can really help by replicating the sounds of the womb.

Touch

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Babies tend to explore things through touch as this is a very well-developed sense. Try giving them different types of object to interact with using a play mat. Contact with parents is absolutely essential in bonding, so you should hold your baby often. Also, rubbing on some lotion after a bath can be soothing to them.  

Smell

After around a week, your baby will start to recognise the scent of the different people in his or her life. Use the same products on a regular basis as babies enjoy familiarity. Avoid heavily scented detergents and colognes as these can mask your natural scent and confuse your baby. Over time, you can start to explain different smells to boost their language development.

Taste

You should introduce your baby to a variety of tastes from an early age. This way, they will have a natural head start on enjoying all the different types of food that make up a balanced diet. You should be more careful if your family has any sort of food allergy issues.

If you think that there are any problems with your baby’s senses, you should be prepared to go to the pediatrician at the earliest possible opportunity to have them checked out. Hearing and eye tests can be done from a young age and can help to give you the peace of mind that you are looking for. Other than this, make sure that your baby stays well stimulated to help their development in all areas.