How- To TALK to your baby ~ Baby Talk
Tags: Health, Kids, Parenting, Moms, Baby

BY THABITHA DAVID · PUBLISHED JULY 2, 2020 · UPDATED SEPTEMBER 10, 2020

Talk to your Baby to encourage language development: Your baby is just born and few months old. You look at your baby and all you hear is them crying or making funny sound.

You hear or read a lot of advice on talk to your baby and how it helps speeden up language development.

But when you see your baby. You are at loss of words.. You have no clue what to do or how to talk to your baby.

Your mind says that it is a waste of time and you know that your baby is not going to understand anything you say. Leave alone respond to you.

You might be asking your self what is the point?. Or if there is a point. How do I talk to my baby?.

Topics

What is baby Talk

Baby talk is a type of speech which happens when you as an adult talk to your baby. It is also the talk that babies talk.

In simple layman’s terms, baby talk is nothing but the loving gibberish that you speak with your baby.

Usually parents indulge in baby talk when they are tending to their baby.

It can be done when they are giving baby a bath or changing their cloths or during any time that you get to spend with your baby.

Why is baby talk important?

The importance of baby talk is numerous. While below I have explained few.

To put it in a short way. More the baby talks the more likely they are better to be than their peers who had less baby talk by the age of 2. Their language development is comparatively higher.

Helps in brain development

We are known that 80% of the child’s brain gets developed during the first 3 years of their life. As the brain grows, they form important connections called synapses. These connections are important to help us think, understand, learn and process information.

When you baby talk to your baby. You are firing up these synapses to develop in the language part of her brain. The more the baby talk, more the words stronger the mental connections will be. This is fundamental for language development.

While we are in the topic of brain development can you guess one another amazing activity that helps brain development (Synapses). Its Boredom. I can bet you did not know this.

If you have not guessed you should read our article on “I AM BORED” — Surprising benefits for kids you did not know about.

Helps in building Good habits

Baby talk also happens when they are reading to their baby or playing with them.

When such activities are enjoyed by your baby. Your baby will relate toreading and playing in a positive way. And this sets the foundation for reading and playing habits as they grow

You may also like to read our article on 25 EASY WAYS TO TEACH KIDS GOOD HABITS. And have an outline of the good habits that every kid should have. This will help you start early.

Helps in increasing vocabulary

You cannot do baby talk with out using words.

When you baby talk you are introducing words to your baby. When you point to objects and mane them you are making your baby relate to the object and the word.

All these help your baby to get introduced to words and thereby increasing their vocabulary and there by aiding language development.

Increases Bonding

Baby talk is a good way for you to bond with your baby. When you indulge in baby talk you will not only just speak you will also touch and sign to your baby.

You will pay attention to their cues and they will in turn learn by observing you. All this leads to goo bonding between you and your child.

Apart from the benefits mentioned above there are many other psychological benefits that your child reaps.

Benefits such as Self-confidence when their rudimentary ways of communication are acknowledged and responded to.

It reduces anxiety, makes your baby feel loved, makes them feel secured to mane few.

Signs that your baby is communicating to you

When your baby is crying

Your baby is communicating to you from the time he is born. A baby’s first ways of communication is crying.

Babies cry when they are hungry. Babies cry when they are sleepy. They cry when they are uncomfortable. Babies even cry when they are bored.

The most basic and fundamental of communication is crying. and your response to these cries is the first form dialogue that you have with your baby.

Tip: Try to respond in a positive way. And not get irritated by the cries.

Babies communicate though laughter

In few months your baby will start communicating to you through smile and laughter.

This Smiles and laughter do not mean that they understood the joke and they are laughing out of humour. They just laugh to say to you that they are present and involved in your conversation.

My nephew when he was in this stage would just laugh for everything. We as a family would be having a serious conversation and he would still happily sit and laugh every time his mother pics.

When they Babble (the “oohh’s, “aahh’s”, “keekk’s”)

Around 4 to 6 months you will start seeing that your baby starts to babble. They start to make all sorts of sounds like “oohh’s, “aahh”, “keekk”, “Kaa” etc.

Babbling is a fundamental block on which communication and language development is built on.Your response to babbling plays a very important part in developing your child’s communication.

Tip: Don’t ignore it as random sounds but treat babbling as a language and talk back to your child.

When they babble to express thoughts/ feelings.

By now you would have slowly learnt to decode your babbling. When they cross 6 months and over you will also find that there language development is in full swing and they make certain sounds to voice out.

They attempt to voice out their thoughts and feelings.

My niece would use a high pitch “ahh” sound whenever she hears the Cotton Candy Man ring his bell.

I have seen my son use shirking “Eennnn” sound when he sees me reaching out to the shampoo bottle to wash hair.

Tip: Pay attention to their babble. The faster you understand these. You can understand their thoughts and feeling. And you can have better conversation with them.