When Do Babies Start Recognizing Their Parents?

Now that your little one is finally in your hands, every new mom has a fear of when babies start recognizing their parents and well, the first fact is babies usually prefer to observe human faces over other things.

The bond between mother and father is so special that newborn feels more comfortable and at ease with their mother because not only are the mother’s calmness, scent, and voice familiar but they also spend more time with her during the day. 

In this blog, you will explore when babies start recognizing their parents and how much time does it take for a baby to recognize faces.

How Does A Newborn Recognize His Mother?

• Sense of hearing 

Even before coming into the world, newborns have a great sense of hearing. While still inside the womb, human fetuses are capable of hearing their mothers’ voices. From the third pregnancy period, a growing baby can hear and identify its mother’s voice. 

The brain and other sensory systems have matured to the point where this is possible about 30 weeks into the gestational period. This means that during the final 10 weeks of pregnancy, unborn children may hear and identify their mother’s voice.

The babies can also hear the heartbeat of their mothers and a pulsing of blood flow in a good way. Recognizing voices is the first step in your baby’s language development and potential growth. However, the language processing area of their brain is activated when they hear a familiar voice, even if it is recorded.

• Sense of smell

Similar to hearing, the sense of smell also progresses and becomes operational during the baby’s time in the womb. Babies start recognizing their parents with a sense of smell that develops earlier in the womb, and while still in utero, they start to taste and smell their mother’s amniotic fluid. It just takes a few days after birth for them to identify—and start to favor—the scent of their primary caregiver. 

The baby inside the womb of the mother observes the waves of amniotic fluid while it slurps its thumb. During swallowing, the newborn turns to the mother’s breast automatically after birth because it’s a functional source of amniotic fluid.

• Sense of sight

A newborn needs a few weeks and likely possibly up to 2 months to be able to identify its primary caregiver through sight, but even though is not completely flourished at the time of birth, babies can yet surprise you in a lot of different ways. According to research, babies tend to identify faces more than any other object. 

In addition to this, the little ones love to gaze at faces until the babies are between three and six months old they are unable to identify them. By the time, as the baby gets older, their visual sight recognition will improve and feel the sense of sight. The research shows that 6-month-olds can even determine individual faces from a crowd far more easily than adults can!

When Will The Baby Start Recognizing People?

There is no such evidence that helps parents be aware of when their children can start recognizing faces. The studies show that babies can start recognizing their parents more early than they can identify other people or objects, which often takes a longer period. A newborn baby learns to recognize parents’ features early but it takes several months or years to get friendly with other family members and close friends.

• Birth time

The newborn recognizes their mother through smell even though they are too young to determine faces, they are aware that their mother is someone special and likely to stare at them.

• 2 to 4 month period 

  At this period, most of the babies start recognizing their parents or caregivers. But after 4 months, they are able to recognize family members and other objects.

• 6 months 

At 6 months, babies can easily recognize their parents and other familiar people they see regularly.

• 9 month

During this period, babies can recognize their loved toys well and start getting social with family members and other people.

• 15-18 month 

The kid is well aware of their identity in this period and can recognize themselves easily in the mirror.

Activities That Will Help Your Babies Recognize Faces

• Start interaction with them 

Get started to interact with your babies and react to their facial expressions this will help them to get more affection and love from you. Also, don’t miss the happiness and joyfulness when you are around them.

• Copy their expressions 

Babies will love it when you start copying their gestures and expressions, give goofy smiles if your newborn is smiling, and scream & shout if your baby is crying. This will help to deepen the bond between the mother and child.

• Give them cuddles and hold up their arms   

Babies adore loving cuddles, kisses, and holding them in arms, these small gestures express the love towards the baby, as they do understand the love and cuddling. It’s too much necessary to develop and nourish the parent-child bond.

To sum up, newborns come to the new world and their brains are slowly developing in just a few weeks after conception and this will continue to grow at a rapid pace. The best way for the baby to start recognizing their parents is to interact often.

It takes babies a little time to be familiar with family members, social situations, and outsiders. Your baby achieves a milestone but a little later. If you are concerned about your baby’s growth you can get in touch with a pediatrician and health care provider.