Boost Your Child's Brain with Black & White Toys?

So, what's the big deal with black and white toys?

Why are they everywhere, they're not even that attractive? To you that is. When babies first come into the world, as much as we fret and obsess over their little features, they can’t even see ours. Instead they listen to our voices they’ve heard all throughout their time in utero and can only focus till about 10 inches away from their face. From birth till about 3 months, research from the likes of the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute in San Francisco (amongst others) has shown infants can only see primarily in shades of black, grey and white. This color combination provides the best contrast and are the most appealing to them. Without getting too technical, what this means is the rods and cones (the structures that perceive color) have not matured enough, making colors like red, blue pink and yellow not be able to be perceived in their correct values and intensities.

 So, what are the benefits in incorporating contrasting objects throughout baby's environment?

Doing so is said to actually boost your child’s attention span and curiosity while improving memory and nervous system development. With simply using flash cards using contrast, Dr.Deborah Brateman, the former head nurse of Neonatal Intensive Care Nursery at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, DC reported that this increased the amount of time babies spend looking at their environment from an average of 4 to 5 minutes to up to 45 minutes after being fed. Yes, you read that right!

 How much or how little of it you want to incorporate is up to you. From complete nursery décor, to toys and activities, check out Aldea’s assortment of contrasting black and white toys and play!