Newborn Toys

Playtime For Newborns

Before we look at newborn toys that can be bought, the best newborn toys are the faces of the adults caring for the newborn. So your face, your partner's face the faces of friends and family - these are the most fascinating "toys" for a newborn.

However there are toys you can buy that are beneficial for a newborn's entertainment and development . It's true that a newborn is not going to be able to hold and manipulate a toy that is intended for their entertainment like an older child would do. However there are different things that you can buy for your newborn that are going to be toys and also going to help them in their development.

Baby's First Words...teaching baby to talk

This video a perfect example of a mom and dad teaching a 2 and a half month old baby to say "oo". And they are so surprised when baby says it back to them! This is a great example of " baby talk" just for practice and pleasure.

Baby Milestones - First Words

Before a baby can say proper words, the lips and tongue need to acquire the strength and agility needed to form speech. Plus, the brain also needs to develop enough to match objects up with their corresponding names.
As a first-time parent, you're probably wondering when your little one's cooing and babbling will develop into his or her first recognisable words. Considering babies normally pronounce their first real words at 11 months and onwards.You must be patient and see all that babbling and cooing as useful attempts to speak and communicate using 'imperfect' word pronunciation.

The rate at which babies arrive at this milestone may vary. If you want your little one to reach this stage faster you must try to help him (or her) do so.  And there is nothing tricky about it. In fact , there are lots of easy and enjoyable things you can do to foster baby talk.

How Do Babies Learn to Communicate?

The reality is that your baby is basically mastering the skill to communicate throughout the day, every day . Each and every time he or she makes a fuss , you usually make an effort to make him (or her) feel much better. Your reaction and the way  you respond to your baby's noise-making basically sets the basis for language and teaching baby to talk.

By the age of two months, your baby is already able to respond to your cues. Your cues are the words you say. Also, the lilting manner in which you speak keeps him/her interested and promotes understanding of words and sentences. That's why every time you speak to your baby, he or she stares back at you and makes cooing sounds in response. This is how babies learn to talk.

By the time your little one turns six months old, he or she will normally begin to babble. This will be a series of sounds a bit like words, but which don't have any meaning . Baby babbling is how babies love practising and  working out  the muscles of the mouth which they will put to use later when speaking genuine words.  At first, the sounds will only be made up of vowels like ah. ow, oh, ee, uh. After that, his or her nonsense words will then contain consonants like m,b,d, because these are the consonants babies find easiest to pronounce to begin with . Inside a few months, your child will try to mirror your words and other sounds.

How To Teach Baby to Talk

Match up items up with names. - At mealtimes , for example, give the names for eating utensils like the plate, spoon, fork, cup and the like. Each and every time you say the word, point to or hold the object and repeat the word at least three times.

Be like a child yourself. - Playing games like "peek-a-boo" really reinforces listening, mimicking and taking turns - all of which are prerequisites of carrying out a conversation.

Read to your baby. --In the beginning, your little one won't comprehend the words you say, but the words are being absorbed and stored by his brain. So reading to your little one will stimulate his or her senses and foster an everlasting love of books, which will be an excellent basis for later success at school and in life.

Prattle back -- When your child babbles, say something that sounds the same in reply. For example, if he or she says "boo boo", you might copy him and say "boo boo" yourself, or respond with something like "Hey, goo goo."  Your baby will love this game and the fun you both can have with silly sounds, really makes learning a lot more enjoyable. But always remember to pause briefly to let your little one babble back at you and get used to the pattern of a real conversation.

There is a wonderful Youtube video showing a mother having fun with her four-month old baby by making silly sounds. She also uses mirroring -  repeating the sounds baby makes:



Sing. -- Babies, by nature, have a love for music. Singing  is an excellent way of introducing a wide variety of sounds and words.   Songs with animal sounds are great because they are so enjoyable and you can have fun with the sounds well before baby can actually say words.

Your little one's first word is, definitely , a thrilling milestone. Remember , though, that babies develop at diverse rates. follow this link to find out more about teaching babies to talk.  Congratulate yourself when your baby reaches the first words milestone and feel proud that you helped to teach your baby to talk.

Teach Baby to Talk with mirroring

The best time to start teaching your baby how to talk is from the instant the baby is born.
Hearing the voices of parents, family and carers creates profound changes in a baby's brain by making essential learning pathways.

The cells grow and link in ways that develop memory and awareness, which leads to an increased ability to learn even more. The impact is a bit like pouring water into a balloon. The more water you pour in, the larger the balloon gets.

Most human brain growth happens in the first three years of life, when the major skills are learned. Many Scientists believe that the brain development that takes place in the first three years of life is larger than all the development that occurs during a person’s complete lifetime.

It's good to know some basic methods to teach baby to talk.
This technique below, is called "Mirroring" and is valuable up to the age of about 12 months or one year.

1. make sure baby isn't hungry, sleepy or irritated by a wet or dirty diaper
2. hold baby so that your face is about 18 inches ( 40cm) away from baby's face.
   • lie baby on your lap when very young, or hold up with head supported
3. smile and open your eyes wide to get baby's interest
4. say a single uncomplicated sound, like "ah" in a slightly higher pitch than normal
5. exaggerate the movement of your mouth while you speak
6. wait for your baby to respond ( he possible won't say anything but he will be paying attention)
7. watch for signs of pleasure or excitement, like smiling, opening and closing fists, waving arms
8. repeat the sequence ( speak, wait)
9. when the infant responds maybe with the same sound or his own sound, smile and laugh to display you're pleasedhe made the effort.
10. YOU copy the sound BABY makes
11. repeat this sequence to develop the rhythm of "taking turns" like a conversation.

When you copy the sound an infant makes, you are sending a signal to an infant that what he just did is appreciated and that you want him to do it again. In other words, baby learns to exercise his mouth muscles and that speaking is fun.
In the video beneath, you can see a dad using these mirroring tactics brilliantly , using just vowel sounds and funny entertaining sounds:




Take note of the sounds your baby makes and as baby grows older, he will add more and more sounds.

You can also start to introduce new easy sounds like bah, mah, gah. The consonant sounds b,m,g are the easiest for young babies to say

As well as these focused, daily, 'instructing' sessions, you should be talking to baby all the time about what you are doing, what he's doing, using normal language, but spoken slowly, brightly and clearly.
At each and every phase of your baby's development, there are various tactics you can learn and use to teach baby to talk.

Teaching babies to talk by singing

I found a great video on Youtube which is a perfect illustration of how to teach babies to talk using singing.

Points to note before you watch the video:

Why would singing help the baby to learn to talk?

• The baby's gaze is focussed on the mother's face ( attention)
• There is no background noise ( no distractions )
• The mother sings a slow song ( a simple tune and the words are well-spaced out)
• The baby is enjoying listening to the song ( she smiles and gurgles)
• The mother sings the words very clearly ( good pronunciation )
• The mother stops singing and leaves a silence, prompting baby to respond. ( taking turns)
• The baby tries to copy the mother's singing ( mimicking what she sees and hears)
• The baby experiments making a wide range of mouth and throat muscles (practicing)
  

This little exchange between mother and baby shows important steps in teaching babies to talk.

The baby's talking skills are being developed by learning that:

1. hearing a song is exciting, fun and stimulating
   
2. communicating is about "taking turns"
3. she can move various muscles in her mouth
4. she can make l..o..n..g sounds by controlling her breath
5. she can make a wide range of sounds
6. her mother wants her to respond
7. her mother adds some "extra talk" ( she says "words" and "song" and "can you SING it?" )

The mother understand that one way of teaching a baby to talk is to sing to her. But more than that...
She understands the need to stop and create a silence - a space in the "conversation" when baby can respond.
This mother understand the techniques for teaching babies to talk.

Please leave a comment below.

Learn more about teaching babies to talk.

5 myths about baby talk | BabyCenter

5 myths about baby talk "Parents hear a lot of advice about their babies’ language development. Which tips are bogus? Here’s what research suggests about several popular beliefs about babies and the development of speech.

Myth #1: It doesn’t matter if you don’t talk to your baby–at least not when he’s very young.

Reality: Experiments demonstrate that newborn babies recognize their mothers’ voices. More than that, they already recognize the distinctive sounds of their mothers’ native language. And they prefer to a certain type of speech, which brings me to myth number #2…

Myth #2: “Baby talk,” that high-pitched, sing-song intonation that many people use when addressing babies, is bad.

Reality: This style of speaking is called “infant-directed speech” and it features many characteristics that seemed designed to help babies learn language. Not to be confused with speaking nonsense words (“coochie-coo!”) or trying to imitate a baby’s speech (“baby want wawa!”), infant-directed speech is about communicating more clearly. When people switch to “baby talk mode,” they speak more slowly, exaggerate their pronunciation,.

Learn more about how to teach baby to talk

When do babies start talking?

Many parents wonder when their baby will say their first words.

The age that babies start to say recognisable words differs hugely from one baby to another and depends on many factors. In the normal pattern of baby speech development, first words can generally be expected any time between ten and fifteen months. The important thing for parents to note is that most of the sounds babies make before a real word is produced have a purpose or meaning.

A baby's first cooing sounds - ah, oh and then later, with consonants added mah, gah, boh are the most skilful sounds a baby can make with the level of muscle development the baby has. But the baby is trying to communicate with you. When you repeat these sounds back to baby and smile, you are signalling that talking is important and that you enjoy and appreciate the sounds baby makes. After a time, you can find that baby will 'reply' by repeating the sound or making a different sound and then you find yourself having a 'conversation' with baby. What a great realisation for a baby - that a conversation means taking turns

Around six months, when baby starts to babble in a way that sounds like a foreign language, this is an exploring and practicing phase that lasts several months. The baby is happily discovering how to make different sounds and practicing stringing sounds together and there is no special meaning in those sounds.

If you have ever done an exercise program to get fit, you understand that the actions you do have only one purpose - to increase the strength of the muscles. So baby babbling is your baby's personal fitness program for strengthening the muscles in the mouth that will be used for talking. At this stage baby is not attaching any meaning to the sounds, but generally she or he will be delighted and entertained by the sound of his or her own voice!

If your baby is making sounds or is at the babbling stage, then please tell us about it by posting a comment below.
Click the blue "comment" word below to leave a comment, thanks.

Ella

You can read more about when babies start to talk at http://www.teachbabytotalk.com

How Parents Can Use Baby Talk to Teach Baby to Talk

How Parents Influence Baby Talk

The serious business of ba-ba-ba

In The New York Times this week, pediatrician Perri Klass breaks down baby babble for us. As we know (but it’s always good to get a reminder), baby talk is not a random chaos of drooly sounds — it develops along a predictable path. And research shows parents have a big part in shaping it and helping their little one turn it into language.

Klass says that by seven months, the vowel strings, squeals, and gurgles that little babies make start to be punctuated with consonants. “Canonical babble” is just this — ba-ba-ba, or da-da-da. It takes a certain amount of oral-motor development, because the baby has to close her mouth and shape it in a distinct way, so as to push the air through and make the right noise. Pretty advanced stuff.

Canonical babble is a turning point for most parents, because we start to recognize and respond to these sounds as if the baby is really trying to say words. We’re finally having a conversation.

And how we respond (not just by mimicking) makes a difference.
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Learn more about how parents can respond to baby babbling to teach baby to talk

Teaching Babies to Talk

"Some people might question the idea of teaching babies to talk, or at least using the word "teaching". They say you can't teach a baby to talk, you can only "encourage". That's more than a bit puzzling. It implies that "talking" isn't something that can be learned, when, in fact, babies do ‘learn' to talk. How fast and how well they learn depends on how well they are taught, among other things."

To learn more about Teaching Babies to Talk be sure to read the rest of this article.

Baby Speech Development and TV

Reuters AlertNet - Educational DVDs don't help toddlers' language-study: "NEW YORK, March 4 (Reuters Life!) - Putting children in front of educational DVDs does not help boost their language skills, according to a U.S. study that focused on one product, the Baby Wordsworth from the Walt Disney Company's Baby Einstein series.

While The Baby Einstein Co does not make educational claims, it notes on its web page that the Baby Wordsworth DVD is a 'playful introduction to words and sign language.'

A study by researchers at the University of California, published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, put the DVD to the test with one and two-year-olds.

For six weeks, 88 children were randomly assigned to either watching the DVD a few times a week or not at all. Researchers then tested the language skills in each group based on how many words the children knew according to their parents and how well they did in a lab test.

At the end of the period, toddlers who had watched the DVD fared no better than those who hadn't.

Children in both groups understood about 20 of the 30 words highlighted in the DVD, on average, and spoke 10. Their general language development showed no difference, either.

The researchers also asked parents about their childrens' television viewing before entering the study. The earlier a child started watching Baby Einstein DVDs, it turned out, the smaller his or her vocabulary was.

The Baby Einstein Company emphasized in an e-mail to Reuters Health that it 'does not claim educational outcomes.'

On its web page, it notes that its products 'are not designed to make babies smarter,' but rather 'to engage babies and provide parents with tools to help expose their little ones to the world around them.'

The study's finding is in line with earlier research, said Rebekah Richert, a psychologist at the University of California, Riverside, who led the study, but it is unclear if the DVDs themselves are responsible.

Parents who place their kids in front of the screen could be trying to remedy slow language development, or they could be using the DVDs as baby sitters, cutting back on social stimulation.

'A lot of children, particularly when they're young, seem to have these kinds of (DVDs),' Richert told Reuters Health. 'My take-home message would be to encourage live interaction between parent and child.'

Although it is not well understood how watching television affects language, Richert and colleagues wrote in their report that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children younger than two stay away from the screen.

Some experts have even suggested that baby videos might be harmful by impeding social and cognitive learning.

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If you have an idea why baby-targetted TV doesn't increase a baby's vocabulary, let us know.

Teach Baby to Talk

Many people don't realise that the time to start to teach baby to talk is from the moment baby is born.

Speaking to a baby automatically fires up the brain cells within the baby. As the child hears more words and is exposed to more ideas, brain connections are made which leads to better understanding. Although your baby can't speak when he is born, he can hear, has emotions he needs to express and has desperate need to hear voices and learn about the world he has arrived in. Everything you say to your baby from the moment she is born is being stored in baby's brain for later use, until the muscles in the mouth are developed enough for her to actually make the right sounds.

Babies learn to pronounce words by listening to words. They also learn how to put together simple sentences by listening to others. Talking to your baby from day one is actually teaching him or her how to talk. sets up a good base for later communication skills development such as reading and writing. It has been shown that the more a child is spoken to up to the age of three years, the larger the child's vocabulary grows. Children with the largest vocabularies at age three go on to make the most progress at school in later years. A child exposed to early vocabulary will often have a deeper level of understanding of words and ideas than those who did not.

Communication skills are also important at a social level. As your child grows, he or she will need to be able to express thoughts, feelings, goals, and other important issues with you and with others. By helping your child early on to learn words and ideas, he or she will be better able to express those thoughts to others.

The time you spend with your baby helping him or her to learn to talk is time invested in your relationship with each other. Because you are spending time with your child, he or she will feel loved and secure. This can lead to higher levels of confidence and self-esteem later on in life. This effect is longlasting. It lasts a lifetime. Learning to teach baby to talk isn't difficult or complicated