What your newborn can actually see

For the first two to three months, clear focus sits at roughly 20 to 30 centimetres, about the distance from your baby's face to yours during a feed. Beyond that, shapes blur. This is why a newborn will study your face for minutes and ignore a mobile across the room.

Colour vision develops gradually, so strong black and white contrast is easier to process than a pastel rainbow. A simple striped card held still is doing more work than a busy patterned playmat.

Practical version: hold one object still, close, and for a short time. Watch for the moment the eyes lock on, count a slow ten, then stop. Two or three of these a day is plenty.