12 Amazing baby facts you probably didn’t know about

Babies are amazing and they grow up so fast, but here are baby facts that you may not have known about them.

There are a lot of things to learn when you first have a baby. Here are some baby facts that you probably missed though. Now you can amaze your family and friends with your deeper knowledge of babies.

A babies sense of taste

• A baby has about 30,000 taste buds. They are not just on the tongue. Their tastebuds are also on the back, sides, and roof of the mouth. They lose some of these as they grow up. Adults have about 10,000 tastebuds.

• A baby cannot taste salt until it is about five months old. The delay is thought to be related to their kidneys not being developed properly. They start to process sodium at about that age.

• Newborns can recognise the sound of their mother’s voice immediately. They become familiar with the sound of their mum’s voice in the womb. They can also recognise the sound of their native language.

Physical baby facts

• When babies are born, they have 300 bones in their bodies. Their bones fuse together as they grow up. Adults have 206 bones. This is why adults have fewer bones.

• A scientific study discovered that fathers appear to determine the height of their children. They also found that mothers tend to influence how much body fat they will have.

• Babies are born without kneecaps (Patella) – They only start to turn bony at 3 years of age, until then they are just made of soft cartilage. They finish forming between the ages of 10 and 12.

• A neonatal baby’s (one that is less than 28 days old) heart, beats at a rate of 100 to 165 beats per minute. For comparison, a normal heart rate for an adult is 60 to 80 BPM.

Baby sight facts

• A baby’s eyeballs barely grow. Their eyeballs are roughly the same size they’ll be when they are adults.

• Babies can be soothed by their own mother’s breast milk. In a breast milk study, babies were given a heel prick. It was found they became calmer with their mother’s milk faster than any other milk.

• Babies can’t see as we do. They can’t see colours like adults. The range of colours they can see is very limited. Also, their vision is blurry and they have no depth perception. Babies use their sense of touch to “fill in” what they don’t yet know about the visual appearance of an object.

Some other facts

• UNICEF estimates that an average of 353,000 babies are born worldwide each day. That’s about 14,708 babies born per hour, 245 per minute, or 4 every second. An estimated 140 million children will be born in 2021

• A baby doesn’t learn that each object is unique until it’s around 6 months old. Before 6 months, whenever it sees a bird, it will always assume that the bird is the same bird it’s seen before.

If you found this article interesting, funny, or amazing then click on a share button below. Check out a more serious fact article about How much does a baby cost here.