Baby Tips - Talking To Your Baby!

Use your baby’s name in conversation. Although she won’t respond for some time, she will begin to understand her name being spoken rather quickly. You should also refer to yourself in the third person because pronouns such as “I” or “me” can be confusing to a baby just beginning to develop language skills.

Ask your baby a lot of questions and always give her time to respond. Although you won’t expect a response right away, before you know it, your baby will be responding to you with her cute “yah” and “no.” Pausing a bit allows your baby time to think about what you have said and even if she doesn’t have an answer, she won’t feel as though she is being talked over or unimportant to the “conversation.”

Using gestures when you speak will also help your child understand simple phrases such as “bye-bye” or “come here.” Bye-bye will likely be one of your child’s first words because of the simplicity of the action. They will very easily pick up that “bye-bye” is used when someone walks away and leaves.

If you talk about what you are doing while you are doing it, you will provide your baby with the much needed words that they desire to learn. Even if they don’t speak yet, your baby will begin to understand what “bath time,” “dinner time” or “walk” is. After all, your baby does not learn anything unless you teach her.

Reading to your baby also helps develop very important language and communication skills. Simply by reading a story to your child, you will be exposing her to language that you may not normally incorporate into your daily routine. Through books, your baby will learn what different things are such as farm animals. Keep your baby involved in the story by using sounds, rattles or motions. Use a lively voice to bring the pages of the book to life for your child.

Singing is a wonderful way to communicate with your baby. Your sing-song voice will entertain your child while they learn different words from your exaggerated syllables and motions. Music also helps stimulate the brain and spark the connections needed to understand speech.

Copy your baby with their own sounds and expressions. Your baby will think it’s quite a game when you copy her. The more you talk back to her, the more likely she is to experiment with her voice and talk to you. This interaction mimics a real conversation so it’s a great tool in teaching a small child how to speak.

Interacting with your baby in all of these ways will prepare her for speech, and give her the confidence she needs to speak. Don’t feel strange walking through the grocery store talking to your baby before she responds, she loves it!