Stimulating your baby's senses every day
01. 12. 2025
Stimulating your baby's senses every day
Bath time, shampooing, applying cream... These moments are not just routines. They are key to stimulating your baby's senses, creating lasting memories, and strengthening the emotional bond between parents and children.
Smell
Smell is the sense most closely linked to memory. From birth, babies perceive and distinguish smells: they immediately recognize their mother's scent and, over time, learn to classify and differentiate between different fragrances. Around the age of 3, they begin to express their preferences, and by around 5, their sense of smell is already well developed. At 6 or 7 years old, their vocabulary allows them to describe their olfactory sensations and develop their personal tastes.
Smells are also strongly linked to emotions. Some can evoke pleasure, others disgust. It is therefore essential to support children in the development of their sense of smell by associating each scent with a positive experience.
At Enfance Paris, our collection of eaux de toilette is designed as a sensory journey: each fragrance, inspired by childhood, awakens the olfactory memory and reactivates, with tenderness and nostalgia, the sweetest memories.
Touch
Touch is the first sense to develop in the fetus. The first skin receptors appear in the fourth week of pregnancy, around the mouth in the seventh week, and on the face, palms, and soles of the feet in the eleventh week. By the twentieth week, the entire body is sensitive to tactile stimulation.
After birth, touch remains a central sense. Babies explore the world with their hands and, in the first few months, mainly with their mouths. Caresses, care, and bath time are essential for creating a sense of security and strengthening the emotional bond.
At Enfance Paris, our cleansing gels and shampoos are deliberately free of texturizing agents so that you can fully enjoy the natural sensations of water and contact with the skin. This makes every bath a rich and authentic sensory experience.
Hearing
Hearing is the most developed sense in babies. From the 25th week of pregnancy, the fetus perceives internal sounds from its mother's body, then, from 5-6 months, it begins to hear external sounds, such as its father's voice or music. At birth, it naturally recognizes its mother's voice and certain familiar sounds.
To stimulate hearing, it is recommended that you talk to your baby regularly, describe your actions, imitate their sounds, and expose them to a variety of noises. These interactions develop their hearing and strengthen the emotional bond.
Taste
Taste development begins as early as the 7th week of pregnancy. By the 13th week, taste buds are functional, and by the 6th month, the fetus discovers amniotic fluid and its variations in taste depending on the mother's diet.
At birth, babies naturally prefer sweet tastes, which provide a feeling of well-being and comfort. Bitter tastes cause disgust, salty tastes become noticeable around 4 months, and sour or umami tastes elicit neutral reactions. Exposing children to a variety of flavors from an early age, in a pleasant setting, helps them develop food preferences and associate tastes with positive emotions.
Sight
Vision is the last sense to develop. The eyelids remain fused until the 24th week of pregnancy, at which point the retina and optic nerve begin to develop more intensely. Around the 7th month, the fetus can distinguish between shadows and shades of light. After birth, at around 3 months, the child can perceive several basic colors, and at around 5 months, their color vision is comparable to that of an adult.
Exposure to natural light plays a protective role against myopia, as it stimulates the production of dopamine, which is essential for balanced eye growth. Spending time outdoors, looking into the distance, and playing outside promotes vision development and eye health.
Conclusion
Stimulating your baby's senses on a daily basis is not limited to hygiene or feeding: every gesture and every moment shared becomes an opportunity for discovery and connection. Bath time, massages, scents, music, flavors, and light are all stimuli that contribute to your baby's development, curiosity, and the creation of lasting emotional memories.
With simple, attentive gestures, every parent can transform daily routines into truly sensory moments, promoting their child's development while strengthening the unique bond between them. Enfance Paris products are designed to accompany these precious moments, respecting your baby's sensitivity and well-being while gently and authentically awakening their senses.