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This article was reviewed byRhonia Gordon, MD, who is a clinical assistant professor with the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology atNYU Langone.

For many new parents, watching their baby become aware of his or her surroundings is an exciting, beautiful process. As the baby begins to pay more attention to faces and interact socially, it's clear that the once pea-sized embryo is finally becoming a tiny little person of their own.

"Babies can actually make eye contact right from birth," says Dr. Dipesh Navsaria, MD, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Council on Early Childhood.

Eye contact is one way that parents can tell that their baby is starting to take a greater interest in the people around them.

Early on, in the first few months, newborns will be especially attracted to a few specific things, like the color red and heavy contrast like black and white, Navsaria says. They're also attuned to the human face, or at least its general outline, even as their eyesight is still developing.

As babies grow, they begin to make conscious efforts to engage socially, which goes beyond just a natural propensity for human faces.

Compared to their first month, when they could only focus on objects about a foot away, babies three or four months of age have better color perception and can start to make out other objects besides faces, like toys.

By four months, they should also start to exhibit more conscious behavior like reaching for their toys and smiling deliberately at you when you make eye contact.

Babies might show a reflexive smile, grinning for no apparent reason, from birth, but between four weeks to four months, they'll develop a social smile, either responding to another person or trying to get someone else to smile at them, Navsaria says.

By age one, if a child doesn't seem to be able to lock onto objects or make conscious eye contact, it's crucial to speak with your pediatrician, Navsaria says. Going to the doctor can also help parents understand if their baby is actually having trouble with their vision, or if the problem is with hearing or something else, like autism.

Eye contact is very important in terms of a child's brain, social, and emotional development, Navsaria says. "It's one of the key ways in which we make connections with other human beings."

In early childhood, forming those early connections with parents and having a loving, nurturing, supportive relationship is the single most important thing for development, Navsaria says.

For the most part, though, a baby's vision will develop on its own. "The eyes generally take care of themselves," Navsaria says. So there's no need to try to give your infant an at-home eye exam unless you think something might be wrong. When in doubt, always contact your pediatrician.

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When babies make eye contact and what to expect as their eyes develop over the first year of life - INSIDER

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