How to develop a child's five senses and when to use them !

 

How to develop a child's five senses and when to use them !

When a child is born, parents begin to wonder if he sees them, hears what is going on around him, smells smells, and some may fear that the child does not see or hear, and there is some problem and they are unable to know it! In this article, we provide an overview of the development of the senses in infants, which helps you understand how and when your baby can use his five senses and when there may be a problem.. Follow along with us.

 

First: the sense of smell

The sense of smell is one of the first senses to develop in the womb. Olfactory receptors begin to develop as early as the eighth week of pregnancy and develop and mature by the time the fetus reaches the twenty-fourth week of pregnancy, which means that your baby is born with a fully developed sense of smell! After birth, babies begin to attach to the smells of their mothers, which serves as a calming means for the infant when placed on his mother's chest, he has become accustomed to her smell since he was in her womb.

 

Also, the sense of smell helps your baby to identify his food, such as breast milk or formula milk, for this we find some babies refuse formula milk after they get used to the smell of breast milk or vice versa. And even after the baby is a little older, children continue to use the sense of smell for communication and Safety, from the University of California: the child gets used to the smell of his parents and is able to distinguish his parents from any stranger, and this can sometimes make it difficult to hand over your child to an unfamiliar person, but you can harness the power of smell to help your child feel more comfortable in certain situations, for example, many children feel more comfortable if they are wrapped in a blanket that smells like their mother, when the mother is unavailable, such as at work or sick

Second: the sense of touch

The sense of touch begins to develop early in pregnancy, as soon as the pregnancy reaches 8 weeks. The sense of touch helps your baby communicate with caregivers and provides feelings of warmth and security, so mothers are encouraged to hug the baby a lot and the baby's skin touches the mother's skin, this is especially important for premature babies. And although your baby's sense of touch is fully developed at birth, it continues to develop as he grows, babies do not know at first what the texture and texture of Objects looks like, and this is learned through experience. The primary purpose of the sense of touch is to protect us; however, children also use this sense to communicate with their parents, learn how to play and move.

 

Third: the sense of taste

Like the sense of smell, your baby's sense of taste is one of the most important senses. Taste buds develop as early as the eighth week of pregnancy, and your baby's taste buds are fully functional at about 17 weeks of gestation. And even in the womb, your baby uses his sense of taste when he starts swallowing and tasting amniotic fluid.

 

After birth, your baby prefers sweet or salty flavors, which makes him familiar with the taste of breast milk. The sense of taste is developed through the flavors that he tastes through breast milk or formula milk; research shows that breastfed babies tend to prefer foods with flavors that they knew while breastfeeding. As they get older, the taste buds continue to mature, develop, and more flavors become palatable. Once your child eats solid foods, doctors suggest that the child be exposed to a variety of flavors early so that he develops a good taste for a large number of foods and thus later becomes receptive to food and not picky.

 

Fourth: the sense of sight

The sense of sight is completely immature at birth, and begins to develop with time. And your baby's vision begins to develop in the first trimester, at about 7-9 weeks of pregnancy, and by the twenty-seventh week of pregnancy, your baby can open his eyes. And at 31-32 weeks of pregnancy, the fetus responds to bright light. However, the baby's vision remains blurred at birth and babies can only see the length of the ruler in front of them after that. And although your baby's sense of sight is not completely clear at birth, it quickly begins to improve over time.

 

At first, children see people only when they are very close and do not distinguish colors. But as the months progress, children can see distant objects and begin to distinguish colors. And in the first months of a child's life, you can try to move him away from your face a few inches and look into his eyes, and you will see his eyes begin to focus and stare at you with interest, and you may get a beautiful smile from him. Vision problems or blindness can appear at birth and may occur as a result of development in utero. This can be caused by parts of your baby's eyes or optic nerve not developing properly. Problems can also occur as a result of brain processing problems, in which your child's brain is not able to properly process the images it receives.

Fifth: sense of hearing

Hearing begins to develop as early as the 16th week of pregnancy and becomes more accurate during pregnancy and the lactation period. Your baby begins to hear your voice in the womb, then he will be able to recognize you after birth, and as the months pass, the sense of hearing helps in the development of language in children. All newborns are supposed to have a hearing test shortly after birth. But sometimes hearing loss does not appear immediately and you should continue to monitor your child's hearing over time, because hearing problems can cause language and learning deficits.