How to help your baby start talking early?

During the first year your baby undergoes a lot of changes from the first cry to first smile to first gurgle, coohs, babbles and learning to  say mama, dada and so on. Babies are in a continuous process of learning to communicate right from their birth. Long before they start speaking, they can  understand the general meaning of what you are saying, can recognises their mother's voice and can also understand their emotional tone. Babies love to communicate on their own way by babbling something, smiling, gurgling and they love it when you respond and talk back to them.


In the baby's first year, a parent can do a lot to encourage her baby to start meaningful conversation early. By the time the child is into his second year he can communicate easily by saying two-three word sentence and can also communicate about his needs. Since all babies are different and their development time frame is also different so comparing one baby from the another is not fair. All you can do is encourage them to talk more and more by talking actively with them, start right from their birth itself. It may sound silly but it really works, the more you talk with them, the more early they will start talking.

 
Why is it good to focus on communicating with your baby ?

Early speech, good communication and good language skills are always associated with success in developing good reading, writing and interpersonal skills during their childhood as well as during their adulthood. A good communication skill goes long way and helps in achieving success in all stages of life like be it in school, college or carrer or be it a personal life or social life.


When to expect your baby to start talking:

At around 4-6 month, a baby starts babbling, he also responds to your smiling and cooing. This is how he communicates during this age. He also make sounds like 'ooh' and 'aah' . Initially he uses vowels to make sounds and later he can say some words like 'ma-ma' , 'da-da', 'ba-ba' etc. using consonants.


At around 7-12 months, a baby can understand simple instructions like when you say 'no' or 'come'. They may not be able to express in words but they may use their actions and babbling sounds to communicate with you. They may waves their hand to say 'bye-bye' when daddy goes to office and blow kisses to him. They may also point outside to tell you that they want to go out in the open. During this stage, they start saying their first words or are about to start saying their first words sooner.


At around 12-18 month, they may be able to say few simple words. Some babies can also say 3-4 word sentence during this stage, but no need to worry if your child has not started talking yet as all kids are different and their pace of development is also different. Some starts talking too early and some little late. All these milestones for babies are designed to make parents alert of any problem before its too late. So no need to worry if your child is little bit slower than his friend.


How to help or encourage your baby to start talking early:

1. Talk often to your baby: 

Always smile and talk to your baby in loud and clear voice even when you think they won't understand anything. They will love your attention, your voice and try to communicate with you back by making various noises and facial expressions. They also love when you imitate their voice back to them with funny faces.


2. Find more and more opportunities to talk with your baby :

Whenever you do some activity with them, talk about it to make them learn and understand about it like when you take them for a bath or make them to eat food or even make them wear clothes. Talk everything about it from colour to name of the object, actvity name etc and soon they will surprise you by saying some meaningful words about these daily activities.

3. Always respond to their baby talks :

You may find it silly but its always better to respond to your baby whenever he tries to communicate with you by different gestures, noises and cries as they love your attention and when you equally respond to them, they enjoy it and are more encouraged to communicate with you. Don't be ashamed of your silly baby talks, your baby loves your funny expressions and your changed tone, so feel free to talk as much as you want with your baby and enjoy communicating with them.

4.  Look and Point things when you talk:

Always try to point the object about which you are talking to make the baby recognise the object with the name like if you are talking about a doll, point each body parts of the doll and then describe about it, you can also simultaneously touch to your baby body parts to show them that they also havethe same parts like hand,legs,face etc. so that they learn, understand and recognise the things easily. 

5. Understand their actions and put them in words:

Try to understand your baby's actions like when he is pointing at a ball, you can say," Oh you want a ball, Do you want to play with it." or you can pick the ball and say "you want this round ball or red ball to play". Always try to describe about everything with loud and clear voice to make your baby pick the words and communicate faster.

6. Read picture books for your baby:

Reading picture book is also a way you can make your baby commumnicate faster. Read louder with all the actions to make it interesting and point the object on the book about which you are talking to make him recognise and understand it faster. This will also help in inculculating the habit of reading books in him when he grows up. 

7. Singing Lullaby's and kids Rhyme:

Singing some lullaby's, kids rhyme or songs to babies even when they are too tiny also help them in picking up the language and start communicating faster as baby's love music and the process of speech recognition starts in the womb itself. They recognise their mothers voice from womb itself. Music also makes them calm and relaxed and to your surprise your baby will also try to imitate to sing the song like you. So singing is also a great way to help your baby talk early.

8. Play games like pee-ka-boo:

Playing games like pee-ka-boo or any tickling games with your baby also help in making him communicate faster. Babies actually loves these games and respond to you with laughs and gurgles the moment you start to tickle them. Its fun and a great way for both mother and baby to bond with each other and also help babies to communicate faster.


What to do if you feel your baby is not responding to your talks:

After continuous efforts to communicate with your baby, if he or she is not responding to your talks or you feel something is not right, it is always better to discuss with a doctor to make sure of any underlying problem. You should also notice your babies behaviour towards sound, whether he reacts to loud sound and turns his head towards it. Incase of any doubt, please consult your doctor.  Most of the time their might not be any problem bacause some kids start talking too late like after 2 years but it is always better to consult a doctor in case of any doubt to be on safer side because it's always better to be safe than sorry afterward.