Shared by Keziah Engineer

One month. Your baby will be able to understand speech long before actually talking. From birth he will look at your face and listen to your voice. He may make a small range of noises that will start to mean something to you. The way that your baby cries is an important communication method while he is actually unable to talk. Through responding to this crying you let your baby know that she is important to you – and this can really be reassuring for a young infant.

Talk to Baby

Two months. As a child enters his second month he is far more aware of the world – things such as sounds, even that of your voice, will amuse and fascinate your child. Your baby will respond with a variety of cooing sounds, vowel-like sounds, and sometimes some consonant sounds such as a “k”. During this time, try and talk with your baby. By looking into your baby’s eyes you are communicating an important thing to her – that you are listening.

Three months. By now you will find that your baby is able to recognize your voice and may come to you or face you when your voice is heard. You may notice him laugh out aloud and may even scare himself by doing this. At this stage you should not only talk to your baby but also introduce other communication forms such as singing and story telling. The greater your effort in trying to talk with him, the better his response is likely to be.

Four months. By now more and more communication should be taking place with your baby. There will be lots of repetition to the sounds that your baby makes. It is important that you always respond to your baby’s “oohs” and “ahhs” and whatever other communication methods she is using. There will also be certain times when your baby may also not be in the mood for talking. He will turn his head in the other direction and may put his arm over his face.

Five months. As each month progresses you will find that your baby is becoming better at communicating. By now he’ll most likely be able to let you know if he’s happy or sad. Interestingly, if you always respond to his communication efforts (whatever these may be) he’ll repeat them whenever he wants your attention this way. During this month it’s likely that your baby will be looking at your mouth moving while you talk. Talk to him from across the room and he’ll be able to find you with ease.

Six months. Your baby may now be using consonant-vowel combinations. It’s quite possible that he has discovered his mirror reflection and is probably having conversations with himself.

Communicate with Baby

Seven months. Your baby is now continuing to learn how to use his newfound language skills. He may be able to do things such as wave goodbye and may accompany his wave with babbling sounds. He can say “mama” or “dada”.

Eight months. Your baby is playing games such as pat a cake and peek-a-boo. Even though he can’t speak the words that belong to these games, he can babble and talk to himself. It’s likely that your baby knows what the word “No” means by now as well.

Nine to twelve months. It’s possible that by now your baby understands requests and commands such as “give it” or “don’t touch that”. At this time you should be encouraging your baby to use gestures (and you should respond to them). For example if your baby indicates she wants to be picked up then say “you want to be picked up?” while picking her up. This helps the learning process.

Check out other article in the previous post about How Baby Einstein Works in this Infant Learning site.