The first twelve months of a baby’s life are full of sensory advancements. Sight, smell, hearing, touch, and taste all develop faster during the first 12 months of life than during any time thereafter. As a baby’s senses become more refined, their unique preferences and responses begin to reveal themselves, and their personalities begin to shine.

 0-3 Months 

• Sight: Limited colour, begins to make eye contact.
• Smell: Fully developed, will turn towards the source of food.
• Hearing: Fully developed, will react to familiar sounds.
• Touch: Fully developed, will crave skin-to-skin contact.
• Taste: Attracted to sweets (breastmilk) and anticipates feeding.

 To Encourage Sensory Development: 

• Baby loves to see your face. Mobiles and overhead gyms are helpful to encourage eye tracking.
• Familiar smells, like breast milk, calm and soothe baby. Try sleeping with a baby blanket and giving it to baby for comfort. They love your smell most of all.
• Baby loves the sound of your voice. Try singing and narrating your day.
• Cuddle time! Provide plenty of skin-to-skin contact.
• Attracted to the sweet (but not sugary) flavour of breast milk and formula.
• If breastfeeding, eat a varied, nutritious diet. Your baby will be able to taste the changes in your milk. 

3-6 Months 

• Sight: Developing eye rods and cones, tracking objects and people.
• Smell: Interested in smells of food, stronger reaction to bad odours.
• Hearing: Sounds become associated with objects, sound mimicking begins.
• Touch: Able to use both sides of the body together, learns push and pull.
• Taste: Begins to become open to flavours such as salt and shows interest in others’ food.

 To Encourage Sensory Development:

• Help baby explore with new toys, places, and experiences. When holding them, try facing them out to see the world around them.
• Try minimizing bad odours (change those diapers quickly!) to keep baby from fussing.
• Keep talking to baby, and start to point and name items.
• Toys with varying texture engage little ones and create interest that holds their attention.
• Begin to offer age-appropriate purees of fruits and vegetables between 4-6 months.

6-9 Months 

• Sight: Eye control, hand-eye coordination, and depth perception improves.
• Smell: Begins to associate smell with taste, and place location of smells.
• Hearing: Able to identify the direction of sounds & recognize familiar words.
• Touch: Recognizes textures and begins grabbing with thumb and forefinger.
• Taste: Starts to reach for nearby food

 To Encourage Sensory Development:

• Continue to encourage exploration by introducing new (safe) objects and experiences. Try playing peek-a-boo!
• Uses sense of smell to help decide whether he/she likes new food
• Introduce new and different foods, including some spices (not salt or sugar)
• Encourage two-way communication and play music.
• Encourage hand-eye coordination with stacking toys and fill and spill play.
• Try offering teethers with varying surfaces to help teach an appreciation for new textures

9-12 Months 

• Sight: Depth perception and distance judgements improve. Easy grabbing of objects.
• Smell: Increase in smell preference and reaction.
• Hearing: Can recognize and react to songs and sounds.
• Touch: Crawling and grabbing develops. Baby is now able to grasp handheld toys – like rattles and teethers.
• Taste: Enjoys a greater variety of taste.

 To Encourage Sensory Development:

• Make consistent and meaningful gestures. Try teaching baby some simple sign language words, like “more” and “milk.”
• Avoid harsh-smelling environments, and continue to introduce new flavours.
• Use noisy toys to show cause and effect - hit it, make a noise!
• Play with toys that require gripping and finger movement to encourage hand and finger control. Create associations by naming textures.
• Experiment with offering new food textures, including soft finger foods.