My First Baby Milestones -first words

According to many "my first baby" books and websites,  a lot is written about all the practical aspects of looking after a baby. These are very important  but sometimes the "my first baby" articles don't tell you that by talking to your baby you will have a happpier baby who frets and cries less.

As a first-time parent, you are probably wondering when your baby's cooing will develop into his or her first words. Other questions about communication will usually come up too . As soon as a baby is born,  the lips and tongue start to acquire the capability essential to form speech. Plus, the brain also begins to match things up with their corresponding names. You need to be patient, though, as babies normally pronounce their first real words at 11 months and onwards.

The rate at which babies acheive this milestone will vary. If you want your baby will get to this stagephase more quickly you have to make an effort to help him (or her) do so.  And there is nothing tough about it. As a matter of fact , there are many of uncomplicated and exciting things you can do to teach baby talk.

How Do Babies Learn to Communicate?

Really your little one is basically mastering the capacity to communicate day in and day out . Each and every time he or she cries , you typically do your best to make him (or her) feel far better. The way you react and the manner in which you react to your baby's noise-making generally set the groundwork for language and how you help baby talk

By two months, your child is already capable of responding to your cues. Your cues are the words you say. In addition, the higher-pitched way in which you speak keeps him/her entertained and encourages understanding of words and sentences. That's why each time you speak to your little one, he or she stares back at you and makes cooing sounds in response. It's in this way that infants talk with their parents.

By the time your little one turns six months old , he or she will normally begin to babble. This will be a sequence of sounds a little like words, but which don't necessarily mean anything . Baby babbling is the way babies love practising and  exercising  the muscles of the mouth which they will bring into 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 infants find easiest to pronounce at first . Inside a few months, your child will attempt to mimic your words and other sounds.

How To Teach Baby to Talk

Match up things up with names. - At mealtime , forillustration, give the names for eating utensils like the plate, spoon, fork, cup and the like. Each time you say the word, point to or hold the item and repeat the word at least three times.

Have fun . - Playing games like "peek-a-boo" really reinforces listening, mimicking and taking turns -all of which are required facets of carrying out a conversation.

Read together. --In the beginning , your infant won't comprehend the words you say. Nevertheless, reading to your baby will encourage his or her senses and foster an everlasting fondness for books, which will be an outstanding foundation for later accomplishment at school.

Prattle back. -- Each time your child babbles, say something similar in reply. For instance, if he or she says "ba ba", you might copy him and say "ba ba" yourself, or reply with something like "Hey, boo boo." The fun you can have with silly sounds, in fact make learning a lot more enjoyable. Just remember to pause for a short time to let your little one babble back to get used to the pattern of a real conversation.

Sing. -- Babies, by nature, have a fascination for music. Singing, therefore, is a terrific way of introducing a wide array of sounds and words.   Songs with animal sounds are great because they will delight baby and you can have fun with the sounds long before baby can actually say words.

Your little one's first word is, definitely, an exciting milestone. Remember , though, that babies develop at unique rates. You may also find out more about how to teach baby to talk by reading the "language and communication" section of My First Baby books. Also, congratulate yourself when your baby reaches the first words milestone and appreciate that you helped to teach your baby to talk.

Baby Talk is Bad ?

Baby Talk is Bad for Children, but not for Babies !

The"baby' is often used to describe young children of various ages up to about 3 years. In terms of learning different skills and development it is better to be more precise, and talk about young children as:

1. "infant" - under 1 year old
2. "toddler" - 12-30  months
3. "child" - 1 and 2 above and everything else up to 16?

When people say " talk to babies like they are adults" they are correct, but under the age of 12 months, using "baby talk" in ADDITION, supplies infants with many benefits. It is not a case of  baby talk OR adult talk, but BOTH.

Infants need to hear different types of talk and each teaches babies something different about the human voice and talking.

Each type of talk could be called "baby talk"

1) Baby Talk - A way of talking to babies using a special voice- also called Motherese, Parentese, Caretaker speech,  - high pitched, lilting, sing song voice where the actual words are the same as in adult speech, but spoken in a different way.

Research has shown that babies like, enjoy and pay more attention to "parentese" than the normal fast, flat, joined-up speech adults use to talk to each other.

2) Baby talk for "practice" - repetition of sounds for the pure joy of baby discovering  his own voice and practicing how to make the individual sounds in words.

3) Baby Talk - Mirroring - where the parent repeats the same sound the baby makes to create a conversation. This video below is an excellent example of 'mirroring"

 term

This video below shows three types of talk
"Parentese" - adult words spoken with special lilting voice
Mirroring -  repeating the sounds baby makes
Entertainment - the joy of repetition

Infants (under 12 months) learn different things from each type of speech. In various cultures and many different languages, parents and family members use similar types of " baby talk" called " infant-directed speech', 'parentese" or " motherese" when they talk to their infants.

Infants Become Toddlers

The point around 12 months when a baby changes from being an infant to a toddler marks a big leap forward in language learning. At this stage first words, like mama, dada, cup, hat, cat, no,  appear and it becomes essential to say words clearly, show your toddler the shapes your mouth and lips make. It is also the time when Mirroring 'baby talk",  that copies how infants talk, should not be used with toddlers. Once they begin to actually say words, they need clear, correct speech to copy. They need "parentese" , " motherese" - normal language spoken slowly an clearly with short sentences and a musical lilt.

Before 12 months, babies speech development needs are very different from the later months and years.  Babies will learn to talk well without baby talk, it is true, but it is not BAD. It is beneficial for bonding for the adults and infants it seems perverse to withhold it in the mistaken belief  that it is doing harm before the age of one year, when in fact it is does a lot of good.

Below is a list of links to articles by professionals in the child brain, speech and language development spheres, and other sources where "baby talk" is explained and encouraged for the good effects it has.

"Beweave" it or not, baby talk helps babies learn language. Research shows that babies prefer to listen to our silly baby talk from birth.     

Baby Talk: Communicating with Your Child -- Roberta Golinkoff, PhD 

Adults may feel silly when they talk to babies, but those babies will learn to speak sooner if adults talk to them like infants instead of like other adults, according to a study by Carnegie Mellon University Psychology Professor Erik Thiessen

Carnegie Mellon Study: Adults' Baby Talk Helps Infants Learn To Speak 

For a complete program of activities stretching from birth to age 3 years, you can learn how to best use the different types of "baby talk" while you teach your baby to talk

Baby Development - Some First Words Tips

When parents or caregivers ask about baby development, and baby's first words in particular, it would be terrific to give a really simple standard answer, but that isn't possible when all babies and all parents are different.

So when people ask when a baby will say his first words, I'm tempted to say - well it depends how many words he's heard spoken to him. It's not enough to just have heard words spoken. 

The words need to have been related to the baby's needs and experiences.  It also depends what exactly we mean by words. If a baby looks at a cup and says " up", is that a word? We know he means cup, and that his mouth just isn't mature enough to say the "c" , Or early baby babbling from around 6 months is full of many "words" but we have no idea what they mean.

This Youtube video shows some baby babbling. Sounds a lot like dadadada!

So when we say "first words" it seems we mean a combination of sounds that we recognize and understand that are related to something we know. 

So here are a few tips to help baby get to the point of  babies saying " meaningful words"

1. Turn off your mobile phone
   'hearing' you talking to your friends on your mobile phone are only a tiny bit useful to a baby learning to talk.  He needs you to be focused on him and the words you are using need to be focused on an activity he or  you are doing. You need to be talking in clear short simple words and repeating the words and the actions. Talking on your mobile phone doesn't help here.
2. Turn off the TV
   often TV's are just left on in a room when no-one is watching it and the sound becomes a background for what other things are happening. As adults we have developed the great skill of being able to focus on what we want to hear and blocking out other sources of sound, so it fades into the background. Young children haven't developed the same skill and the sound from a TV can interfere with hearing all the separate sounds in the words you are speaking. So all that is heard is an even more meaningless jumble.
3. Play simple games
   Playing games is the heart of learning to talk and I use 'heart" deliberately. Joy, humour and laughter speed up learning. When a baby smiles and laughs we know his attention is focused. So the kind of games to play in the first few months that make babies smile and laugh is repeating the same action over and over along with repeated sounds and words. At least 10 minutes of every day should be spent doing action play.
4. Be aware
   When your baby is awake, try to put yourself in his place; imagine what its like to be him,  and ask yourself every two minutes, what would I be experiencing and learning?  Try doing that for a period of 30 minutes. 

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Baby Speech

Baby Speech - is all about practice

Baby speech is a topic that interests all parents and baby carers. They all are madly keen to hear a baby or toddler say its first words and most are keen to know how they can help this process. Some parents however have no idea that they play a role in helping their baby's speech to develop.

There is a frantic activity going on every second of the day and night in a baby's brain that organises the brain cells, grows new connections and lets some brain cells die.  Babies are learning something almost every second of the day. Recently I came across the expression " a baby learns what it lives" and I thought that was a brilliant and simple way to express how babies learn and gives a huge clue to parents and carers what they should be doing to help a baby learn anything, not just speech.  At a simple level we can apply the principal to any skill learning and get very specific.

Example
A child will learn to play the piano if it

1. has hands mature enough to move on the keys 
2. gets lessons
3. has an instrument to practice on -  a piano
4. has the time to practice every day and, most importantly -
5. the interest and encouragement of an adult, to practice every day.

You may see that we can apply that recipe to a child's learning anything.

To apply it to baby speech learning we could say the baby needs

1. ability to hear and make sounds
2. lessons in speech - being shown how
3. an instrument to practice on - the mouth and voice (without a soother or pacifier in the way)
4. time to practice every day
5. the interest and encouragement of an adult, to practice every day

We know from research that babies start to develop language skills while they are in the womb because by 21 weeks, hearing has developed and they can hear the voice of the mother and anyone else close by. So through the fluid surrounding it, the baby hears the rhythm of speech and it's tone. We know babies can recognise their own mothers voice just after birth compared to other women's voices. Also, researchers at Leicester University in the UK discovered that at the age of 12 months babies can recognise  a piece of music that was played to them in the last three months while it was in the womb.

Babies' brains are also hard-wired for speech learning so the moment baby is born and discovers his crying reflex, he learns that ( if he has caring parents)  crying will result in getting the attention of the carer, being fed, carried, cuddled, changed, spoken to or ( really nice!) sung to. This last point, being sung to, shows how pleasure and entertainment are key ingredients in babies' learning. Parents need to be aware that boredom is a principal cause of crying and is as important to deal with as hunger or a dirty diaper or nappy. So a crying baby may just be saying " I need entertainment. Talk to me! Sing to me! Make a funny face! Tell me a nursery rhyme! "

Human beings in general repeat actions that bring them pleasure. So babies will begin their speech development by making short little cooing sounds; if those sounds get a reaction (like a smile, or mirroring of the sound back to them) they will repeat them over and over until they eventually develop, over a period of months,  into words.  Its worth repeating "babies learn what they live". It is a really useful thing to make a mental note say, ten times a day - "What is my baby learning right now?". Parents and carers do deeply influence what a baby is learning just by taking an action or not taking an action. Learn strategies for making baby speech learning a daily and entertaining part of your day.

Teaching babies to talk - Vitamin D may play a role

It recently emerged that vitamin D may play an important role in child language development. Scientists in Australia conducted tests over  many years - monitoring vitamin D levels of mothers during pregnancy and their children's language levels at various ages. There were significant differences in that the children of mothers with least vitamin D had less well-developed language abilities.

The authors of the report caution that the results need to be replicated in other populations before firm conclusions can be drawn. However, their findings may indicate vitamin D testing in pregnant women and vitamin supplementation are advisable. The UK department of health  already has taken steps to ensure that mothers have access to vitamin D supplements through their Health Start scheme

So as well as using strategies to actively teach baby to talk , making sure your vitamin levels are at a good level may impact on how well your child learns to talk.

Music for Babies Calms

Music for Babies Calms and Develops Babies' Brains

Music can definitely help calm your baby down and put him in a restful state at bedtime or nap time. What are some good choices for a baby?

Almost anything you love or use for relaxation is good for a baby too. There are good collections of Mozart, Vivaldi or Bach for bedtime. The music of Enya can be very soothing as well. Soft harp music is also relaxing and peaceful.

You've probably seen videos and CDs for babies. There are some theories that classical music can make your baby smarter, and exposing your baby to music is part of what we do to introduce them to all the sights and sounds of their world.

When your baby's awake, there are lots of nursery rhymes or music from kids' movies that can stimulate his senses. We've known kids who respond to minimalist Phillip Glass's music; it's simple and rhythmic and when they get older, they'll dance with it. Spirituals and soft gospel music are also good choices to help the baby get to sleep.

White noise, in the form of a fan (not directed right at the baby), or from sound machines that simulate the sound of an ocean or rain can be restful as well, and can block out noise from the home. You don't need to create an artificially silent environment for the baby, however, since that can make it harder for them to get to sleep when the home's rhythms and noises get back to normal.

 The same music that's helping your baby get to sleep can help soothe your own nerves and provide a wonderful time of bonding and restfulness for you and your baby together. So this is a great time for you to explore classical music as well, if it's not already part of your life.

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