A first possibility is that since babies have smaller eyes, and get more sleep than adults, their eyes stay moisturized – which is why we blink in the first place. But a 2011 study of 4-month-old babies found that the surface area of babies’ eyes, and the amount of times they blink have nothing to do with each other.

A second hypothesis is that babies are new to the world and want to explore, find, and then stare at all the new things they discover. And while they’re focused on their surroundings and their brain is working extra hard to process everything - why would they blink and risk missing something? This makes sense, after all, because adults do that too. Let’s be honest; when we’re scrolling through social media, we don’t blink much either.

Still, scientists were not satisfied with either conclusions. Further study found  that the most likely answer is that blinking is linked to dopamine, a neurotransmitter that helps brain cells communicate with each other. Researchers have found a connection between levels of dopamine in the brain and the quantity of blinks. The higher the dopamine levels in the brain, the more we blink. Since babies’ brains are young, their dopamine system is underdeveloped, and therefore they blink less.

This discovery has led scientists to consider how observing and understanding babies and blinking may help us better comprehend how this neurotransmitter operates. Dopamine is also tied to our movement control, hormone levels, learning and motivation.

Compared to brain scans and imaging, studying blinking in babies is the least invasive. If it can serve as a measure of dopamine activity, it could help predict individual differences in personality, cognitive abilities, and the risk of other conditions relating to dopamine like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or maybe even Parkinson’s disease later in life.

“Spontaneous blinks could be potentially useful clinically — as one additional source of information about neurobehavioral development," Leigh Bacher, a professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Oswego says. However, Bacher cautioned that more research is needed to more deeply understand blinking in babies.