Black, White, and Red All Over: The Newborn’s Color Palette

Infants have awful eyesight. This may sound like a disadvantage, but it is actually nature’s way of sparing the baby from excessive visual stimulation.

Our world is full of light and colors. All of this visual stimulation has little impact on adults, because we have become accustomed to it. A newborn baby, however, has spent nine months in almost total darkness. The roughly 10,000,000 colors that the adult eye sees create far too much information for the newborn baby to process.

For this reason, newborns have been blessed with minimal eyesight. Newborns are near-sighted and see the world in fuzzy shapes and muted hues. What babies can see moderately well is contrasts, and no colors contrast better than black and white. Newborns also have the ability to detect red.

You should keep the newborn’s color palette in mind when selecting toys. Try to find toys that use black, white, and red. Also, look for toys that have bold patterns with clear lines and well-defined shapes. Remember that the newborn’s vision is very limited. Having toys that are easy to process visually will help your newborn learn to interpret shapes.