5 Tips to Teach Your Baby to Talk

Talking is one of the biggest milestones in your baby’s development. Your child is growing, learning, and becoming a real person. Soon he will be using his words to express his needs, wants, and affections. You will be able to stop guessing at what he’s after. Does he want milk, or water, or a diaper change? He’ll be able to flat-out tell you. What a luxury! You can help your child learn to talk by using these tips.

1. Communicate often.

You don’t have to chatter incessantly to expose him to language, but it would be helpful if you told him what’s happening. Try narrating your day just a bit. Say, “We’re off to the store now,” or “Let’s take a bath.” Your baby will begin to associate those words with the activities and experiment with them himself. But communication is also a two-way street. If it seems like your child is attempting to say or do something to get your attention, give it! Make it clear that you encourage his efforts to communicate.

2. Model natural voice and tone.

Some people have a tendency to speak in baby talk to their children, but this doesn’t help them learn the language we expect them to speak. Use your normal voice and speak to your child like a whole person. The more he hears proper language, the sooner he’ll use it. However, you should speak slowly and clearly.

3. Relax and remain patient.

Language is a complicated concept. If you start worrying and fretting over his progress, your frustration will show and your child will be less likely to perform. Language skills form slowly at first and then seem to emerge very quickly. Don’t test him often or force him to show off his early skills to family.

4. Remember: babbling is talking.

When your baby or toddler babbles gibberish, he is talking to you, he’s just not very good at it. Respond in some way, even if you have no idea what he wants. Say anything to him. You want to encourage his attempts to communicate. Ignoring him or babbling back are disrespectful and frustrating for him.

5. Don’t correct everything.

Your child is bound to get some things wrong. He’ll use the wrong words, pronunciations, or make the classic child mistake: referring to all items in a group by one name (like when your child calls every animal a “doggie”). Don’t discourage him by correcting everything. If he frequently uses a word incorrectly, make it a point to use it correctly yourself several times throughout the day.

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Written by Stephanie Parker from Sleepingbaby.com, inventors of the Zipadee-Zip

The motto for Sleeping Baby, makers of the Zipadee-Zip, is: "Inspiring Dreams One Night at A time," and that, in a nutshell, is how it all started…with one little dream that has since become the Parker family's reality. When Brett and Stephanie Parker's daughter, Charlotte, was born, the feeling that welled up inside of them was indescribable; they never realized until first looking into those baby blues of hers that they were even capable of that kind of love.

When it was time to transition baby from swaddling, the Parkers tried every sleep sack on the market and every swaddle weaning trick they could find for nearly two weeks and nothing worked to get baby Charlotte to fall and stay asleep.

Stephanie became determined to restore sleep and sanity to their household and set out to find a solution that would soothe Charlotte's startle reflex and provide her the cozy womb-like environment she loved so much but still give her the freedom to roll over and wiggle around in her crib safely. Out of sheer desperation and exhaustion, the Zipadee-Zip was born. The first Zipadee-Zip(R) Stephanie put together on her little sewing machine worked like magic!

To date tens of thousands of Zipadee-Zips have been sold and all from word-of-mouth marketing. It is so rewarding for the Parkers to see other parents and babies getting the sleep they both need and deserve!

For more information, visit sleepingbaby.com.

Interested in writing a guest blog for Sleeping Baby? Send your topic idea to pr@sleepingbaby.com.

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