Baby magazine article - Amanda

You and Your Baby

So you’ve been to ante-natal classes, packed your suitcase for the hospital, child-proofed your home and even decided on some names… but have you thought about how your baby is going to grow into a social being who could be able to utter it’s first word in 15 months…No? Don’t worry! Our team at “You and Your Baby” have compiled a comprehensive guide telling you the basics of how your baby will learn to talk and what you soon-to-be Mums and Dads can do to help them in the early stages.

What can we expect from our baby?
You may think your first few months will consist of sleepless nights and dirty nappies, well I’m not going to kid you - they will! But there is a lot to get excited about too! Your bundle of joy will be responsive at one month old. You’ll learn all the possible reasons for his cries, his guttural noises signifying contentment and at 5-6 weeks old, your baby will even coo to your voice.

At the age of three months, your voices will provoke smiles galore. He will vocalise when alone or pleased. His excitement will also be shown in anticipation of his bath being run or feeding time.

A six-month old baby has a tuneful quality to his voice - he laughs, sings squeals and produces sounds and like “a-a” and “muh”.

When will our baby start speaking?
At around nine months, your baby will begin shouting to attract attention and babble loudly. These repetitive strings of words will usually be “dad-dad” and “mam-mam”. Your baby will be enjoying speaking to himself and will find amusement when attempting to imitate the playful sounds that you make to him.

When your baby reaches 12 months, he should be able to respond to his own name. You’ll notice how well he understands you, particularly when giving him instructions associated with gesture, such as “Give it to Daddy” or “Clap hands”.

You’ll be relieved to discover that at 15 months, your baby will finally be able to tell you what he wants and needs! he’ll also be capable of speaking between 2-6 words spontaneously in the correct context and understand a great deal more. He’ll start pointing and naming familiar people and objects. He will respond to instructions like “don’t touch” and requests such as “Kiss daddy goodnight”.

A child of 18 months may use 6-20 recognisable words. He can be expected to repeat the main words in sentences addressed to him and will start attempting to sing and join in when listening to nursery rhymes being read.

At two years old, children use around 50 words and listen to general talk with obvious interest. Two or more words can be strung together and he’ll talk to himself continually. You can expect your toddler to become extremely curious asking the name of every object under the sun! He will be well-able to correctly identify body words such as “hair”, “hand and “feet” and will carry out instructions like “Tell daddy tea is ready”.

Most children at two and a half will have learnt up to 200 words. He will practise at every opportunity, often talking audibly and intelligibly to himself. His questioning will include the words “What?” and “Who” and even use the pronouns “I”, “Me and “You” correctly. He may also stutter with eagerness.

You will be astounded at your three-year-old’s ability to manipulate grammar and proud-as-punch as your child utters intelligible sentences to everyone around him! It will seem he is a genius as he confidently uses plurals and prepositions correctly. Your baby will display his abilities by reciting nursery rhymes, counting up to ten and even describing present activities and past experiences!

What about other babies?
It is difficult not to compare your baby and you’ll constantly be asking “Is our baby learning at a normal rate?”. Relax! Research has shown that every baby has an inbuilt device to learn language and no matter what he will progress to speech eventually. Even Einstein did not speak until he was three!


What can we do to help our baby learn?
• Speak with expression
• Encourage imitation
• Show enthusiasm and praise
• Assume babies understand language from day 1
• Make eye-contact
• Engage them in dialogue
• Respond to your baby’s reactions

Try not to worry so much! I’m sure you’ve all read reams of info on parenting, now it’s time to put that theory into practise! Good luck!