Can A Baby’s Hair Change From Dark To Light (Yes!)

Okay, let’s be clear about this. I love babies but I don’t have one myself! This post is purely inspired due to my enthusiasm for the subject! Every time I see someone walking with a stroller and can’t help but go “aww!”. I know I’m not the only one!

But did you ever notice that some babies have almost no hair, some babies have lots of hair, and others who seem to go bald after a couple of months? Well, I noticed it and it sparked my interest… So I started talking to my mom about the hair of babies and that’s why the subject “can a baby’s hair change from dark to light” was born.

After our conversation, I started researching it a bit more online and this article represents everything I found!

So, can a baby’s hair change from dark to light? Yes, this can happen. The color and texture often change. This means that your babýs thick and dark hair can reappear in a much lighter color. Even red can go to blonde and straight hair can go-to curly hair.

Babies’ hair can change from dark to light?

Yes, the color of your hair is not something that is set for life. You’ll often see that a baby’s dark hair may change to having light brown or blonde hair. This all happens during the first six months.

Even after these 6 months, it can happen that babies and toddlers change hair color. Babies and toddlers with blonde or red hair can often develop brown hair as they grow older.

But, as you might have noticed from other people around you, the baby phase is not the only phase where hair color changes. In early childhood, it can change, but it can also change abruptly in adolescence. This is largely due to hormonal changes. Most of the changes that happen in infanthood and childhood occur due to increased concentrations of eumelanin.

This is also why later in life people’s hair turns grey. Melanin stops being produced and your hair turns grey and white.

Can babies’ hair change from brown to blonde?

Yes, this can happen. In the section above you already learned a bit about changing hair color in babies and why this is, but let me dive in a little deeper.

Some babies are born with lots of hair and some don’t have any hair at all. No one really knows why some babies have lots of hair and some just don’t when they are born. Experts believe that it has something to do with maternal hormones and the genetic lottery.

But don’t get too attached to the mohawk of your baby, cause it can change rather quickly! You need to know the following:

The hair of your baby can fall out. No worries this isn’t some “how to stop hair loss in babies” thing. In the first six months, a baby sheds like a golden retriever. You might notice that your baby, or a baby around you, goes from lots of hair to no hair at all.

This is all-natural. Some experts link this fact to the physiological response to birth. Other experts say that it has something to do with plummeting pregnancy hormones. The phase where your newborn loses all her/his she is called “telogen”. 

Luckily for the baby, this telogen phase is usually quickly followed up by new hair growth. But, as you learned earlier, this can be nothing like it was before. It all depends on the pigment that gives your hair color.

You have two types of pigment: eumelanin and pheomelanin.

Eumelanin – makes the hair brown or black. The amount of eumelanin that is present in the baby determines how dark the hair is. Smaller amounts make the hair go blonde, larger amounts make the hair grow dark.

Pheomelanin – causes the hair to go red or orange. Now all of us have some pheomelanin but it all depends on how much there is. True redheads however have little to no eumelanin.

Hair color is not set for life. 

How can you tell what color your baby’s hair will be?

To know whether your baby’s hair color will be red, brown, blonde, or anything in between, there are two things that you need to consider. I’ll list them below!

The first one is genetics

As you might’ve guessed, the first thing that has something to do with a baby’s hair color is genetics. Genetics is the most dominant factor when it comes to determining the hair color of a baby.

Let me give you an insight into all the possible variations that can occur. Experts say that one human has around 100.000 genes in their 46 chromosomes. This automatically means that when two people get together, you can potentially make 64 trillion variations of babies with different traits! Now I know that you can’t make that many babies, but it is fun to know that there are so many variations possible. 

There’s another thing that you should know and that is that a babies’ DNA comes in packages of alleles. An allele is a certain variant of a gene. A gene encodes a certain hereditary trait.

Now, these packages of alleles are either dominant or recessive and this means that for hair color, the dominant ones produce darker shades and the recessive ones create lighter tones. 

In the past, it was thought that just the dominant alleles ruled and decided which hair color the baby had, but there’s more to it. Most of these traits that babies can inherit are polygenic. This means that both the dominant and the recessive ones decide what it’s going to be! That is why there are many more variations possible than just blonde, black, red, or brown.

The second pigmentation.

We talked a bit already earlier about this. The pigment that you find in our skin and hair is called melanin, and melanin has two variations:

eumelanin: This is the one that gives your hair a brown or black look.

pheomelanin: this gives you red and orange tones.

Depending on how much of each type your baby has, determine, in combination with genetics, the color your baby has. 

Final thoughts

Isn’t it fantastic!? I didn’t know that when I started writing about “can a baby’s hair change from dark to light”, all the above had something to do with the hair color of a baby! 

For mothers and fathers to be, or moms and dads who just had their child it is nice to know that when their baby goes bald it is only normal. Nothing to worry about, cause it grows back! Now you do not know in which shade the hair of your baby grows back entirely (you surely can predict it when you look at your own parents and your own hair), but that is part of the fun!

It can change in texture and in color and that makes your baby unique!

I hope you had as much fun reading about how babies’ hair changes from dark to light or from light to dark as I had writing it!

Reading material

Reading about baby’s is something that I love and appearantly you love it too! That’s why I have selected another article that involves the baby subject that you might like! Simply click the link below and start reading!
Can you put baby oil in your hair before straightening it?