There are behaviours that babies are born with, like reflexes and how they are naturally drawn toward faces, but if you want your baby to grow up into someone who can tell you things and understand the things you tell them, then you need to talk with them.
Here are a few things to keep in mind when you chat with your baby:
- Babies aren’t very talkative to start, but they are excellent listeners
- Share your thoughts with your baby, talk about the things you are doing, or tell stories
- Even before their first words, leave room for them to respond, and reply to their babbles and coos to help them learn about the pattern of conversation
- Speak and sing to your babies in however many languages you speak. Babies are super good at picking up additional languages if they are learning them from the people in their lives
- Babies don’t always want to talk. If they look like they’ve had enough, give them a break
- On the other hand, don’t ignore your baby when they’re trying to talk to you. When you respond, you are letting them know they’re on the right track for developing speech
- Maintain eye contact and use facial expressions
- Babies are using cues from your lips and mouth to learn about the sounds coming out of your face. They are simultaneusly learning to lip read!
- Use expression in your voice, as much as your baby loves you and your voice, there is still such a thing as too boring
An extra note about that last point. You’ve probably noticed that people sound different when they talk to babies. They’ll use a high energy sing-song voice that usually makes babies smile. There are studies that show this helps babies to recognize the differences between different speech sounds, which is pretty cool. You might try to tone it down, but there’s evidence that we all do it on some level.
On another level, it’s one of the many ways that you can show your baby that you are engaging with them personally. You are reinforcing that back and forth communication with your baby is foundational for language development and brain development in general.
What works best for you? Does your baby particularly like entries from your old high school diary, or your celebrity impressions? Let us know in the comments!
You might also be interested in a Books for Babies program offered by the Centre for Family Literacy in Edmonton. Here’s a link to the webpage.