Helping Your Baby Develop Language

In the last few months before you have a one-year-old, your baby should be starting to babble and react to your words and facial expressions. They may even start “talking,” as their babbling starts to gather more meaning.

Here are some great ways to engage your baby with your words and start to help them work to harness the power of language.

Play simple games
Pat-a-cake, this little piggy, peek-a-boo and other simple games are great for engaging your baby. Your faces are close together, so they’re seeing your facial expressions and able to watch you form words. 

Talk about all of your activities
If you’re getting ready to feed your little one, talk to them about how they’re hungry, and walk them through your steps of getting them ready to eat. They’ll hopefully be a little distracted from their complaints, and theoretically, they’ll understand their hunger and the process of eating better.

Do the same thing with all of your chores and activities. I sometimes find it a little tedious to talk about getting ready for the store, but now that I’ve got an almost-two-year-old, my girl is much less anxious about the process leaving because she knows the steps we’ll have to take. I think it gives kids a little more control over their life when they understand the process of an activity and can help it happen.

Even when my girl was super tiny, I always not only talked about what we were doing, but asked her how she felt about it. Even when she was just babbling back at me, I wanted to teach her what a question was, and that it should be answered.|

Read Read Read
I’m a believer that reading to your kids at all ages is always a wonderful plan. I have found it amazing how many words and sounds my girl learned to imitate at a very young age, and I attribute it to the hours and hours of books that she’s been exposed to from her earliest ages. If you’re reading to an older kid, bring the the baby nearby, even if they’re distracted, they’ll hear what you’re doing and will like being close to you.

Jenny Ditch lives with talkative toddler in Illinois and loves the days when she gets to read 12 billion different books, instead of the same book 12 billion times.