Baby Talk

I want to take a break from the "play" topic to discuss the topic of "baby talk".

So often you hear that you should not use "baby talk" with your infant, but what does that mean exactly?

If you define "baby talk" as "cootchee cootche coo". Then you should not only talk to your baby in "baby talk".

However, researchers have found that babies respond to "motherese". Motherese is when you use the same words you would use with an adult but with exaggerated intonation patterns and stress.

Example: "Hello baby! Are you eating your toes? yummy toes!" (imagine a sweet mom talking to her baby emphasizing key words and using rising intonation at the end of phrases, etc).

I also think that it's appropriate for moms to "babble" occassionally to imitate their babies' babble. I discussed this in an earlier post, stating that before your child can imitate you, model imitation by imitating their speech attempts. Watch his face light up when he realizes that you heard him!