When Do Babies’ Eyes Change Color?

When Do Babies’ Eyes Change Color? Almost certainly, you fell in love with your baby’s eyes the instant you laid eyes on them. You might be asking whether the claim that babies-newborns eyes can change color sometime during their first year of life is true or not. A baby’s eyes can change hue when they are still quite fair and pale. Their genes determine how much melanin (or color) people have in their bodies. A baby’s DNA basically informs us if their eyes will be blue, brown, green, or another hue. It would look like a simple math problem to figure out how many babies are born to parents with brown eyes. But this doesn’t always happen.

Just like with the skin, the sun can change the color of a baby’s eyes. 

Before their first birthday, they will change in many ways. The most noticeable ones will occur between 3 and 6 months following birth. At this stage, it is likely possible to predict the baby’s ultimate eye color. However, the eye color will become more stable after a few more months. According to eye specialists, the majority of infants will have their permanent eye color by the age of nine months. But it may take some individuals up to three years to acquire a permanent eye color.

what color will my baby eye color have? When Do Babies' Eyes Change Color
When Do Babies’ Eyes Change Color

Iris melanin production determines the eye pigment of a newborn baby

The majority of infants are born with brown eyes, but there are pigment variations and they can alter over time. You may have heard that if your infant is born with blue or light gray eyes, there is a chance that they will turn brown (or green) as they age.

Your baby’s eyes will change pigment at some point, but nobody can say when.

When Do Babies’ Eyes Turn Different Colors?

My baby’s eyes will be what color? New parents ask me all the time what color I think the baby’s eyes will be.

I am frequently asked by new parents what color I anticipate the baby’s eyes to be. This is a query we hardly respond till the baby is at least 12 months old. When Do Babies’ Eyes Change Color? Eye color refers to the appearance of the iris, the muscular ring surrounding the pupil that regulates the amount of light that penetrates the eye. What is this magical change in the color of your baby’s eyes? The answer depends on the amount of melanin in the eye, which is influenced by the DNA your child got from both parents and other things.

According to Dr. Mete, the greatest eye pigment change occurs between the ages of 6 and 9 months.

Over the course of several weeks or months, you may observe your baby’s eyes darkening. The change is so subtle that you might not even notice till one morning when they awaken with a new eye color! 

When Do Babies’ Eyes Change Color?


Through the age of 12 months, the majority of infants will have an established eye color, although Dr. Mete notes that some children’s eye color may still alter until the age of six. Studies indicate that Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) neonates are more inclined to have brown eyes, whereas Caucasian newborns are more probably to had dark blue or grey eyes.Similar to how skin color changes after 3 to 6 months of exposure to light, infants’ eye color also changes after 3 to 6 months of exposure to light.

As they get older, kids who were born with blue eyes may eventually acquire eyes that are amber, red, brown, green, or hazel.

A newborn’s eye color is determined by a number of factors, including the degree of melanin production, the history of the family, the ethnic origin of the infant, and the presence of medical problems such as heterochromia or the condition.

When Does My Baby’s Eye Color Change?

When Do Babies’ Eyes Change Color? Melanin is the substance that determines the hue of a baby’s eyes. Melanin is a brown pigment found in the iris, the structure that regulates the amount of light entering the eye. The quantity of melanin in the iris determines the pigment of the iris. Light eyes contain very little pigment, whereas brown eyes contain a great deal. The pigmentation process of the iris is incomplete in infants. Babies with darker complexion typically have relatively black eyes at birth. The iris color of lighter-skinned infants is typically blue or bluish-gray at birth, but alters as they mature.

Similar to hair and skin pigment, iris color is determined by a protein called melanin. 

Melanocytes are specialized cells in our bodies that are responsible for secreting melanin. If melanocytes secrete little melanin over time, your baby will develop blue eyes. If they secrete more melanin, his eyes will appear green or hazel eye color. When melanocytes are extremely active, eyes appear brown (the most common eye color), and in some cases, very dark.

Due to the fact that it takes about a year for melanocytes to complete their work, it can be difficult to discern the eye color of a baby before his or her first birthday. The rate of color change slows after the first six months of life, but there may still be significant eye color change remaining.

Which Genes Will Your Child Receive?

The combination of DNA inherited from both parents determines physical characteristics such as eye color. Each parent contributes 50% of the genetic material for the baby’s eye pigment. Gene mutations produce alternative forms known as alleles, and each allele differs slightly from the others. There are three pairs of alleles that determine eye color, with each allele resulting in either hazel, green, or blue eyes. The brown allele is dominant over the green and blue alleles; the green allele is dominant over the blue allele, and the blue allele is recessive.

The eye color of a neonate relies on both the eye colour of the parents and that the alleles are dominant or recessive. The child may inherit two dominant alleles, one dominant and one recessive, or two recessive alleles from the parents.

Baby Eye Color Prediction-When do babies’ eyes change color?

It is difficult to forecast the precise hue of a baby’s eyes. However, there are some substantial probabilities dependent on the eye color of the parents. Predict your baby’s eye color instantaneously by selecting the eye colors of the parents and obtaining a personalized baby eye color chart. While rare, it is possible for parents with blue eyes to have a child with hazel eyes. Brown and perhaps green are the prevailing genetic traits, however, it is possible for two individuals with brown eyes to create offspring with blue eyes due to the absence of absolute genetic principles. 

Therefore, the determination of eye color can only be based on statistical probabilities.

Just as we cannot predict the results after laser eye color change, it is very difficult to predict the final eye color of babies. But by following an algorithm-like method that we use in Lumineyes, we can make an estimate with a 50% accuracy margin.

In situations when both parents have the recessive blue-eye gene and their eyes are brown, there is a 25% chance that their kid may receive blue eyes. Nevertheless, in the event where one of the parents possesses a recessive gene for blue eyes and the other parent possesses two dominant alleles for brown eyes, the likelihood of the child being born with blue eyes is exceedingly uncommon, with the probability being less than one percent.

Genetics is an intriguing subject. Every year, new discoveries are made regarding what makes you you and how the genetic building elements of your parents combined to create your magnificent self. Your iris color is just one of these distinctive characteristics, and we now realize that predicting your baby’s eye color is far more complicated than we previously believed.

Definition Of Infant Eye Color

If both parents have blue eyes, there is a 99% possibility that the baby will also have blue eyes. There is a 75% likelihood that the baby will have brown eyes if both parents have brown eyes.If both parents have one of the rarest eye color which is green, there is a 99% possibility that the baby will also have green eyes. If both parents have hazel eyes, there is a 99% possibility that the baby will also have hazel eyes. The hazel eyes remain mysterious. Because hazel eyes are frequently a mixture of brown, green, and amber tints, the baby eye color calculator cannot accurately forecast the likelihood that your child will have them.

The majority of newborns have blue eyes, which may alter over time. 

If both parents pass on their recessive blue eye alleles to their offspring, the child will have blue eyes. If this is not the case, the baby’s eyes change to a permanent color as they age (brown, green, or any other color). At birth, there is a lack of melanin pigment, but as time passes, the iris begins producing melanin, giving the eyes their true color. Six to twelve months are required for the baby’s true eye color to emerge.


The majority of newborns of Caucasian descent have intense blue eyes. Nevertheless, the original color, whether it be brown, green, blue, or hazel, will be determined with time. The child’s actual eye color will be determined by the volume and diffraction of light after exposure to light.

What is the underlying mechanism behind the phenomenon of eye color change?

The phenomenon of iris color change is a relatively infrequent occurrence. Occasionally, individuals may perceive a change in the color of their eyes as a result of varying lighting conditions, leading to the illusion of lighter or darker eye color. However, it is important to note that such occurrences are typically not indicative of actual changes in eye pigmentation. The determination of eye color is contingent upon the distribution and concentration of the pigment known as melanin.

As an illustration, it is commonly observed that infants are typically born with irises exhibiting a blue eye color, which subsequently undergo a darkening process within the initial three months post-birth, owing to the progressive development of melanin. 

Fluctuations in hormone levels, such as those experienced during the onset of puberty or during pregnancy, have been suggested to potentially contribute to minor fluctuations in eye color. However, it is important to note that these variations are limited in magnitude and temporary in nature. The occurrence of gradual alterations in eye color can also be attributed to the inherent process of aging and typically does not warrant concern.

What causes changes in eye color?

  1.  Age
  2.  Environment
  3.  Health
  4.  Genetics
  5.  Diseases
  6.  Exposure to light
  7.  Mood and emotions
  8.  Puberty
  9.  Pregnancy
  10.  Diet
  11.  Nearby Colors
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