Does your baby need glasses-or even a hearing aid?

If your doctor tells you your baby needs glasses or a hearing aid, try to look at the positive side: Just think how much faster your child will process information if he can see and hear everyone and everything more clearly.

Approximately 25 percent of children in America (nearly 14 million) have vision problems severe enough to affect how they learn, and up to a million youngsters have hearing concerns that aren't being detected or treated. That's why it's so important to your baby to monitor her vision and hearing now-if there's a problem, you can catch it well before he starts school.

Dr. Yinka Davies says it's pretty easy for a parent to test a baby's hearing: Does she react if a dog barks or the doorbell rings, for instance?

"Don't test your baby's hearing with a toy that makes a sound but also lights up or is very visual in some other way," cautions Davies, a pediatric specialist and Sacramento mother of two. "Your baby could be reacting to that."

Symptoms of poor eyesight are trickier to spot, but Davies suggests looking for the following milestones:

• First several weeks: Your baby should be able to focus for a few seconds on an object that's about 8 to 12 inches away.
• By 2 to 4 months: She should be tracking objects with his eyes.
• By 4 to 5 months: Your baby should be coordinating eye movement with his hands-that is, reaching out and grabbing for a toy.
• By 6 months: She'll be crawling toward whatever she sees. (Good luck with that!)

Keep Your Own Eyes and Ears Open

If you're worried about your baby's vision-for instance, if poor eyesight runs in the family-six months is the earliest age recommended for a formal exam by your pediatrician (or if you're truly concerned, by a pediatric ophthalmologist). An audiologist can test a baby's hearing as early as 3 months.

And if you should discover that your baby, say, needs glasses, you'll never regret finding out early-especially years later when she's beaming over her school report card.