How could my 5-month old nephew have blue eyes while the rest of the family has dark brown eyes?

Question

I am baffled, and hope there is a genetics guru here to help. My 5-month old newphew has stunning bright blue eyes, yet neither his mother, father, either grandfather, and either grandmother have blue eyes. My mom and dad both have dark brown eyes, and his paternal grandparents also have almost reddish brown eyes. Is is true that babies can be born with blue eyes and then the eye pigment changes colors?
Thanks to anyone who can explain this to me. I have studied canine genetics yet I cannot draw a conclusion for this beautiful baby humans eyes.

Answer 1

It might be that your family had blue eyes way before. You should do a family background check. Genetics can be complicated (believe me, I took a course). There are dominant and recessive genes, on where the Dominant is the physical feature. So lets take capital B for brown eyes, and lowercase b for blue eyes. Since your nephew has blue eyes, his parents must of inherited the recessive blue eye gene from their parents. The possible alleles for the parents are (mom) Bb and (dad) Bb. Since the capital B is dominant and its brown, the parents came out with Brown eyes. But if you look, they also have a lowercase b for blue eyes which they must have inherited. So that means that their families had blue eyes at a point. An offspring inherits one allele from each parent. So your nephew inherited the two lower case b's for blue eyes. Therefore coming out with blue eyes. But the chances of that happening is 25% out of 100. So your nephew is pretty lucky. This is the same with my family. My dad's family all have brown eyes, but my mom has green or gray. I ended up with brown eyes...sadly....but its all genetics. It might seem alittle confusing, but its simple if you understand the terms

Answer 2

Many babies' eyes will change colors as they get older, as the pigment comes in. It's entirely possible they will turn brown.

Otherwise, a recessive gene may have shown up. Simplified, since eye colors are more complicated than this: Brown is a dominant gene, so someone with a brown gene and a blue gene will have brown eyes. Two brown eyes genes will give brown eyes. Two parents with brown eyes can have a blue eyed baby as long as they each carry a blue eye gene, and both get passed to the baby.

Answer 3

Most will hurry to tell you that the baby has a recessive gene that popped up. And that's possible. But the reality is that babies don't have fully developed pigment in any of their cells until they're about a year old. My son had jet black eyes when he was born and they stayed black (and I mean ebony black) until he was 13 months old. Now they're a light green.

Give him a year before you get worried about him being the postman's son. And even if they do stay blue, it's because something popped up from a few generations back and it's a fluke. If he were to have 7 brothers and sisters, it's probable that only one other baby would have the same eyes as him.

Answer 4

Our daughter was born with beautiful blue eyes and kept them for two years. When she turned two they slowly started changing. She's now 8 and has hazel eyes on some days, green or brown eyes on others. A friend of ours has two girls who were both born with blue eyes. One of them is two and now has brown eyes and the other child who is four now has brown eyes too although this color change only recently occured. Another friend of ours recently told us he had brown eyes when he was born and they turned blue when he was six. And yet a grocery bagger mentioned that he had blue eyes until he turned 17 when they then changed to brown. Eye color is a strange thing and you never really know exactly how they'll turn out.

Answer 5

It is likely due to recessive genes. My husband and I both have brown eyes, but our son has eyes that are a mix of gray and brown. I have actually never seen this eye color on anyone else so we think it must have to do with recessive genes from our Scandinavian ancestors. It could be something similar in your case (with recessive genes somewhere down the line), but at 5 months, your nephew's eyes have likely not reached their permanent color. My son's eyes were completely blue until he was over a year-old when they slowly turned gray-brown (and have stayed that way ever since).

Answer 6

Hey Miss Ginger,

There are dominant Genes and recessive Genes. If either parent contributed a dominant gene, they would be Brown. However, each parent has Blue Eyes in their Genetic background somewhere, and had a recessive gene. Both contributed Blue Eye Recessive gene and therefore the baby has blue eyes.

It seems mysterious, but if you look back at the parents ancestors, you will find Blue eyes somewhere.

Answer 7

My sons eyes were blue until just recently (a couple of months ago) and he's 25 months old. Some days they still appear a little blue (when he's wearing blue) but most of the time they are hazel or brown.

Answer 8

For whatever reason, most babies are born with blue eyes and their eye color will change as the baby gets older (usually within the first year).

Also, if I remember correctly, blue eyes are the dominant gene, so that could also be an explanation (if I'm right).

Answer 9

The best ansdwer is Genetics. Mr. Genetic has been the Mail Man in your area for some time...:)

Eye color can even be random.

Answer 10

my mom had dark brown hair and my sister the same,Iturned out blonde hair and blue eyes,,,my great grandma's mom had blonde hair so that's how i got mine,,,it can be from your husbands ancestors...that's why we are all different in our own ways,,,,