Babies are born programmed to learn a language which begins with a social interest in their caregivers. In the first few weeks of their life, they start looking at your face when you talk to them. When the baby is 8 weeks around, they can demonstrate a social smile with their caregiver. This means that they smile back when you sweetly talk to them and smile at them. Those first coos, goos, and gahs will emerge between 2-3 months. These early vowel sounds are how your baby first starts to experiment with using their voice!

The first few months are all about bonding with your baby. Soak up the cuddles and get to know each other. The type of bonding a little one shares with the caregiver introduce them to the social world and social connectedness is essential for the development of communication. Talk, sing, and read to your baby from day one. Get face to face and speak to them using parentese.

Parentese is more than just what we think of as baby talk! It has rich intonation, a higher pitch, a slow rate, and stretched vowel sounds. Parentese also means we are always using real words, proper pronunciations, and correct grammar when talking to babies- no modeling baby-like speech or immature grammar. Encourage your baby to find their voice by speaking to them using parentese and then pausing to see if they will “talk back” by cooing.

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