The Journey of Your Infant’s Sensory Development

Sensory development in infants is more than just the development of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. It also refers to sensory processing or integration—how your infant’s nervous system responds to input from these senses.

At KLA Schools, we nurture your infant’s rapidly developing senses through various thoughtfully designed activities. Here’s what you need to know about sensory milestones and how to encourage your baby’s sensory development.

Key Sensory Milestones for Infants

Sensory development happens continuously, but there are critical periods during which your baby’s brain is especially receptive to new experiences. According to Verywell Mind, this critical window begins at birth and lasts until about age five. However, specific sensory abilities, like vision and hearing, have shorter critical periods.
Let’s explore the milestones for each sense:

Sight: Exploring the World Through Vision

Birth to 2 Months: Newborns have limited color vision but can focus on objects 8–15 inches away.
2 to 4 Months: Babies begin noticing basic colors and patterns.
4 to 7 Months: Full-color vision develops, and depth perception emerges.

Sound: The Journey of Hearing

Birth: Newborns can hear but may struggle to detect softer sounds.
4 to 8 Months: Babies develop the ability to listen to the full range of sounds, improving their auditory processing.

Smell: A Powerful Early Sense

At Birth: Infants have a sharp sense of smell due to early olfactory center development in the womb. They can recognize their mother and her breast milk by scent, and familiar smells can soothe and comfort them.

Taste: Sweet Beginnings

Birth to 3 Months: Babies are susceptible to taste and prefer sweet flavors over bitter ones.
3 Months Onward: Infants begin using their tongue to differentiate between tastes, making it essential to remove choking hazards.

Touch: The First Sense to Develop

In Utero: Touch develops early in the fetal stage.
After Birth: Skin-to-skin contact becomes crucial for bonding and sensory development. Infants use their hands and mouths to explore textures and sensations.

Beyond the Five Senses: Vestibular, Proprioception, and Interoception

In addition to sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell, infants develop three additional senses:

Vestibular Sense: Governs movement and balance.
Proprioception: Manages body awareness.
Interoception: Helps process internal cues like hunger, pain, and temperature.

Activities targeting all seven senses are vital to holistic sensory development.

How to Encourage Sensory Development in Infants

Because infants are rapidly building brain pathways, encouraging their sensory abilities is essential. Sensory activities are a fun and educational way to do this. Children learn through hands-on activities, and sensory play is an engaging way to help your child develop their five senses in a safe environment. Sensory play promotes infant sensory development and builds fine and gross motor, language, social, and problem-solving skills.

Sensory play can involve creating a sensory bin for infants with materials to scoop, pour, and mix and mediums that can interact with the materials. However, there are many other play ideas to encourage the sensory capabilities of infants. Try these sensory activities with your infant today:

Tummy time mirror sensory play: Something as simple as a mirror can help develop your baby’s sense of sight, touch, and taste. Ensure the mirror is safe for your infant to grasp and put in their mouth.
Tummy time texture and sounds: You can develop your baby’s senses of touch and hearing by offering them a variety of textures and sounds during tummy time. For example, try placing items like bubble wrap, fabric, rattles, and parchment paper nearby for your infant to explore. As always, ensure that none of these items pose a choking risk.
Play with food: When your infant plays with their food during mealtime, they’re also learning about texture, taste, and smell. You can encourage this exploration by offering them a variety of food with different textures. Some examples include jelly, cereal, yogurt, mashed bananas, and cooked oatmeal.
Sing or play with musical toys: Singing and musical toys entertain your infant, help develop their sense of hearing, and even regulate their emotions. You can encourage your infant to make music by banging on a pot or shaking a rattle.
Cook alongside your baby: Something as simple as having your baby in a highchair nearby while you cook can go a long way toward helping your baby develop its sense of smell by introducing it to different scents. With older infants, you can also offer them things to smell, such as cinnamon, coffee, and vanilla.
Go outdoors: No matter the season, there is always something interesting for your infant to see, touch, smell, and hear outside. You can encourage them to feel the texture of leaves, listen to birds singing, smell flowers, and watch older children playing in the park.
Have fun with a baby-safe obstacle course: Even a few cushions on the floor can create a fun and engaging obstacle course for your baby. Various movements and positions will help develop their vestibular and proprioception senses.
Create a consistent routine: Life with an infant constantly changes, but establishing a routine will help develop your baby’s interoception sense. This routine can be as simple as a consistent naptime or feeding schedule.

Emotional Factors in Sensory Development in Infants

Because your infant’s brain is developing rapidly and they’re taking in high amounts of new information daily, it’s essential to help them regulate their emotions and keep them calm. Be sure to spend ample time relaxing with your infant in a quiet place to prevent them from being overstimulated. This is a great way to bond with your infant and show them that you support them in everything they do. Encourage self-soothing behaviors in your infant, such as holding and rocking them, talking to them while keeping eye contact, and helping them to change their position if they’re awake.

Supporting Your Baby’s Sensory Development

The sensory capabilities of infants are impressive. Sensory development in infants happens rapidly as their brains develop quickly, and your child is always learning new things about the world around them. You can help your baby build sight, taste, touch, smell, and hearing in many ways. In addition, you can help develop their vestibular sense of movement and balance, proprioception sense of body awareness, and interoception sense of hunger, pain, and temperature.

For example, tummy time offers many opportunities to develop infants' sensory capacities, play with food, sing and play with musical toys, cook alongside your baby, and spend time outdoors. Baby-safe obstacle courses can help develop your infant’s vestibular and proprioception senses, and daily routines can develop their interoception sense.

Celebrating Sensory Development in Infants Every Step of the Way

Sensory development of infants is critical in supporting their overall growth. These are just a few ways you can provide fun opportunities to help your baby learn about their world while also supporting them in building neural connections, improving fine and gross motor skills, and developing communication and social skills. As always, ensure that all materials and activities are safe and allow plenty of rest time to help your infant recharge and process all they’ve learned.

At KLA Schools, we’re passionate about fostering learning through play. We offer dynamic experiences that grow alongside your child's emerging interests and abilities. We can nurture their curiosity, celebrate their milestones, and create a strong foundation for future success.

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