Infants Eyesight

My grandson was born 6 weeks prematurely and his eyes were so different from other babies' eyes, I worried about him so much. I can't answer you question, but I can tell you that he will begin to see well but because of his prematurity the timing is somewhat flexible. Even subtracting his 5 weeks early from his age, making him only 7 weeks old, does not tell you if he is on target. It takes about a year for all the issues of development to even out. By the way, my grandson is doing great now!

I think kids are equipped to see color from the moment they are born (assuming that there aren't complications). The trick is in the baby learning to attend to and recognize colors. Initially, they attend most to black, white and red. Then I believe they start recognizing bright primary colors.

The milestones are a good guideline to help you gauge your child's development, but don't immediately fall apart if your baby isn't right on track. Each baby is different, and the guidelines are more of an "average." If your baby is really significantly off, that's the time to bring it up at your next visit to the pediatricians's office!

http://www.childrensvision.com/development.htm
this site outlines a lot about infant vision. it must be difficult trying to gauge some of this with a preemie!
otherwise, i have to say that i don't totally buy into the case saying that babies don't see color until several months down the road. as this site points out, the mechanics are all there when the baby is born, and the baby just has to "learn to use them." while that makes perfect sense for depth and eye-hand coordination, how does one LEARN to see color?? i know that my babies differentiated colors WAY earlier than 4 months, and that they were following things with their eyes within a few days of birth.

They see in color from day 1. The reason that those black and white pictures are so interesting for babies is that they naturally will look for edges of things. Walls meeting doors, corners, etc. It's the brain's way of helping them learn to distinguish an object from its surroundings. So the high-contrast pictures have very bold edges, which is what they like to look at first. Babies don't have very good vision - they really see clearest about 8 inches from their face, but by 3 months they see 20/40 or so.

L. - I don't know about the seeing color thing, but it's great that you're so concerned about your baby's sight. From what I've read, a lot of infant eye problems go undiagnosed for a long time. Check out www.infantsee.org. It's a program where certain eye doctors will do a FREE eye check on babies between 6 & 12 months old. I took my twins when they were 9 months. They did great, and I was really relieved to know their sight was on track, since everyone in both of our families wears glasses/contacts. Good luck!

Around 4 months old. Congratulations on your new litte guy!

http://www.childrensvision.com/development.htm