When I was pregnant with my first child, I wanted to do everything right. Besides obsessing over everything I ate and fretting over the homework from childbirth class, I worried about decorating the baby's room. I had learned that newborns seemed to prefer black-and-white patterns – but it was hard to find crib sheets done in graphic black, white and touches of red!

We eventually went with an animal theme that was mostly pastels and limited black and white to toys and decorations. However, I was surprised by how much our baby really did notice the black-and-white items. Parker was especially mesmerized by a poster with a checkerboard pattern that we'd pinned over his changing table.

Why are these high-contrast designs so compelling to infants? The answers can be found in the newborn eye and brain.

At birth, your baby can see at a distance of about 10 inches. Beyond that, things can get pretty blurry, and color vision isn't well developed either. Vision improves as your baby grows and eye cells mature. By about 2 months of age, he'll probably be able to see red, orange, green and yellow. By the time he is 4 months old, he'll be able to discriminate all colors in the spectrum, and his vision will be nearly as developed as an adult's.

Newborns like to look at what they can see – so it's no wonder they seem to prefer high-contrast, black-and-white designs. They also seem to have strong preferences for certain patterns, especially faces.

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