Always an interesting question among young parents: what color eyes are babies born with? Your baby’s eyes may have dark or light eye color. Which color will win depends on the parents’ genes, but as well as the genes of your ancestors.
Parents can always compare their eye color and guess their baby’s eyes. If both parents have dark eyes, for e.g. black and brown, it is very likely that their little one will have either black or brown or a combination of those colors. That dark color comes from a dominant gene so much of the earth’s population has dark eyes.
If mom has green or blue eyes and dad has black, the baby is likely to have darker eyes. But there is a small chance that the baby has blue or a combination of the colors of mom and dad’s eyes.
The recessive gene carries the light color of the eyes so that a smaller part of the world’s population has blue-colored eyes and an even smaller percentage of green eyes.
There is a possibility that when both parents have light eyes, and that one grandmother has black eyes, your baby can inherit that darker eye gene. Yes, might sound a bit impossible, but that grandmother can give your baby black eyes even after two or three generations have already passed.
Genes are passed down through generations so all combinations are possible. That is why it is very difficult to determine what genetics will do in the mother’s womb. Maybe your baby will have green eyes like your great-grandfather, or it will pick up its mother’s beautiful brown eyes.
When do you know what color your baby’s eyes will be?
This is not an easy question because the combination of genes in the mother’s belly and the genetic arrangement decide the color of the eyes and skin as well as the complexion of your baby.
Eye color is determined by the parents’ dominant or recessive genes. It depends on whether your baby will have dark or light eyes. Look at your eyes in the mirror and then your partner’s eyes, and this combination of the colors between your eyes most often determines the color of your child’s eyes.
It is normal for the family tree to affect the color of the eyes and the color of your baby’s hair as well. These dominant genes affect the fact that your baby’s body produces more pigment and your baby will have darker eyes.
If the parents have light eye color or recessive genes, your baby will probably have a similar color. It can be a combination of the colors of both parents or the color of the eyes of one of the parents.
However, the baby’s eyes can change color after six months. This is because the mutated gene does not encourage the baby’s body to produce more pigment.
A baby can be born with lighter eyes, but after six months, it can be different. Under the influence of the sun and light in general, the pigment begins to form more and more and the baby slightly changes color usually into darker ones.
This pigment gives your baby a final look in terms of color, complexion, and hair color as well. Only then you can know what color the eyes of your baby will be.
What kind of eyes do babies have at birth?
At birth, babies have mostly gray eyes, but that doesn’t mean that the color will remain the same. They can slowly change to another color, usually to the one which is the most common and dominant in the family tree of the parents.
So, what color eyes are babies born with doesn’t really matter that much, because the baby’s eyes will change in the first six months.
When a baby is born, it has a light complexion, delicate hair, and eyes, so they look brighter. The eye color of a newborn baby is mostly gray to light gray, it can be other colors depending on the climate and ethnicity.
Melanin gives color to the eyes, and as baby cells cannot produce melanin, the eyes are gray. Later, as the cells come into full function, they produce more melanin and the eye color starts to change.
To these factors must be added the sun’s influence and the production of pigment that gives eyes, skin, and hair additional color.
That color doesn’t have to be inherited from one parent. It can also be a mixture of the colors of both parents. But we recommend you to put it all aside and be patient. The bottom line is that you can’t choose that and you have to wait up to a year to see the real color of your baby’s eyes.
Most often, the baby changes the color of its eyes during the fifth and sixth months and keeps that color for the rest of its life. It can happen that later until the first year of life, eyes change color again, but that is very rare.
Summary
What color eyes are babies born with? This really and mostly depends on the genes the baby inherited from its parents and its ancestors. So, you can assume what eye color your baby will have just by simply looking at your own eyes as well as the eyes of your partner.
Fathers would like their offspring to have their eyes, while mothers share the same desire. It should be taken into account that a baby changes the color of its eyes.
So, if the baby is born with a similar eye color like mom or dad, there is a big possibility that that color will change around its fifth or sixth month.
This is not unusual, and almost all babies after several months begin to gradually change the color of their eyes. This is normal and parents should not be scared of this.
Once the first year has passed, that eye color will remain to the baby for the rest of its life. All these changes are very normal and do not affect the health of your little one.