Communicating With Your Baby

Your baby's first year will be a flurry of changes -- and not just diapers. From the first smiles, gurgles, and coos to learning to say "mama" or "dada," babies love to communicate with their own form of baby talk. And they hope you'll "baby talk" right back.

Long before they can speak clearly, babies understand the general meaning of what you're saying. They also absorb your emotional tone. Encourage your baby's early attempts to communicate with you with your loving attention:

• Smile often at your baby, especially when your baby is cooing, gurgling, or otherwise vocalizing with baby talk.
• Look at your baby as he or she babbles and laughs, rather than looking away, interrupting, or talking with someone else.
• Be patient as you try to decode your infant's baby talk and noverbal communication like facial expressions, gurgling, or babbling sounds that could signal either frustration or joy.
• Make time to give your baby lots of loving attention, so your baby can "speak" to you with his or her baby talk, even when you're busy with other tasks.

Baby Talk: Imitate Your Baby

Right from the start, baby talk should be a two-way street. By imitating your baby, you'll send an important message: what your baby is feeling and trying to communicate matters to you.

• Have back-and-forth conversations in baby talk to teach your baby the give-and-take of adult conversation.
• Imitate your baby's vocalizations -- "ba-ba" or "goo-goo" -- then wait for your baby to make another sound, and repeat that back.
• Do your best to respond, even when you don't understand what your baby is trying to say.
• Reinforce communication by smiling and mirroring your baby's facial expressions.
• Because gestures are a way babies try to communicate, imitate your baby's gestures, as well.

• Babies love to hear you talk -- especially to them, and especially in a warm, happy voice. Babies learn to speak by imitating the sounds they hear around them. So the more you talk to your baby, the faster your baby will acquire speech and language skills.

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