Best Ways To Teach Your Baby to Talk (Simple, stress-free strategies!)

0:00 - As parents, we are often unsure of what we can do to help our little ones learn to say their first word. But the good news is most babies are very good communicators and there's some really simple things that we can do as parents to help our babies learn to talk. And some of these strategies are things that we already naturally do, but some strategies we definitely need to be taught. So in this video, I'm gonna cover the known and unknown strategies, which you can use with your little one to help them say their first word.

0:29 But before we do make sure you click on that free PDF document in the description box below which covers the developmental milestones. You can be expecting for your little one in their first year of life. This will give you an invaluable piece of mind as you'll know when to be expecting skills and when to be concerned. At eight to nine months of age, you will notice that your little one starts to increase the amount of babbling they do.

0:50 So they're trying to use lots and lots of sounds to communicate with you. And that 10 months they'll start to use gestures where they'll start to point, they'll start to clap their hands and they'll start to wave. Now this point, we can really ramp up what we're doing to try and encourage our baby to communicate more with us by using gestures and actions and then words. So the very first thing you need to do with your baby at this point is you need to start telling them exactly what you're doing throughout those everyday activities.

1:19 So when you're changing their nappy, giving them a bar or dressing them or putting them to bed, what you're wanting to do is use the exact same words to describe the action that you're doing. So if, for example, you're going to change your baby's nappy, and you're trying to put their leg in a pant hole, what you would say is I would pick up the pants and I say, "Pants on." And then you would lift one leg and say, "Lift leg in hole, and then lift leg in hole, pull pants up."

1:49 And each time you're doing this, your baby is hearing the exact same words to describe those actions. And what that is doing is helping your baby firstly, identify what those words actually mean. So when I say leg, I'm lifting the leg. So it's helping your baby actually identify what the words mean, so it gets that understanding and then that will help so that your baby will start to predict the movements that you're doing, so they'll start to help in those everyday activities.

2:16 But more importantly, it's gonna be easier for them to reproduce that word when they're ready, because they know what that word means. Now, this leads me onto my second point, which is when you're talking to your little one, you wanna use really simple sentences. So I would generally only use one to two words at this point. So if I'm asking them if they want a drink, I wouldn't say, 'Susie, do you want a drink?" I would get the drink and hold it up and say, "Drink," and point to it.

2:44 So you're limiting the amount of words that you're using, and this will reinforce with your baby what the word again actually means because you're only using one or two words to describe an object or an action and it also helps in aiding in their understanding and then the reproduction of that word. The next thing you wanna do is start to label your baby's actions and gestures. So this helps to firstly, tell your baby that by using gestures and actions, they're actually communicating with you.

3:16 So if they reach out to the ball and they get (babbling) then you would say, "Oh, you want the ball? Here's the ball." And you'd roll on the ball. And that again, by saying ball multiple times tells them what the object is called, but also reinforces to your baby that they have communicated to you by using their hands and noise that they're wanting something and you've correctly understood it and given them the item. So again, that reinforces their motivation to continue to use actions and sounds to gain your attention and communicate with you.

3:49 Now, when you're talking to your little one, you wanna make sure that you're actually on their level. So if they are sitting, you also want to be sitting, or if they're lying on the ground, then you also wanna be lying on the ground or you wanna be close to them. There's no point talking to them across the room because they're not actually going to know that you're talking to them in the first place because they're so entertained by everything in the actual environment.

4:10 So you wanna get nice and close to them. So approach them, make sure that they can see your eyes and your lips. And when you're talking to them, you wanna use lots of animated facial expressions so that you maintain their attention. And you also wanna highlight key words. So you will notice that when I say, "Do you want the bottle?" I go high with the bottles, emphasize the word that I'm tryna pair with the object. So you try and make your words more interesting and engaging for your baby.

4:37 So you maintain their attention 'cause their attention span is so fleeting. You also wanna use gestures and actions when you're talking to your baby because that helps them understand what you're saying. So if you're going to say, "Car ride," then I would get a keys and actually jingle the keys and say, "Car ride," or, "time for the car," and jingle the keys. That way your baby's starting to link the keys with the action of going into the car and going for a drive and they will start to identify that car is the actual object that you're going in.

5:11 You also wanna start labeling familiar objects and toys to your little one. So if they have a particular Snuggie, then you would start to label that Snuggie every time they go to hold it or they point to it so that they can start to associate that word with meaning the Snuggie. The other great activity you can do with your little one at this age is read a book with them. So when you have any little cuddle, what you wanna do is look for books that are bright in color.

5:35 Generally board books are really good because they are going to reach out and they will rip them quite a lot or books with a flap. And that just ensures that they're gonna be something that they're gonna be able to use for a long period of time and not destroy them. Now, when you're reading the book with your baby, it's not important about reading every single word that's on the book, particularly if there's lots of words on those pages, what you wanna do is point out items in the pictures.

6:00 So just completely forget about the words and what you do is if it's a farm book, you would point out the animal on that page and you would say the sound that that animal makes. So if it's a cow, I would go, "Cow, moo!" At that point, when you make the animal sound, your little one will actually look at you because those sounds are generally really interesting for babies and it's actually those sounds that are the ones that they're more likely to say as their first word.

6:26 So instead of saying dog, your baby might first say "Woof! Woof!" Because they know that that sound is associated with the dog. And that's perfectly fine. Now you also wanna remember to pause, and this is really important when you're playing with your little one or when you're reading to them or just trying to get them to communicate with you. The pausing gives them an opportunity to give you some form of communication, whether or not that's look at you, make a noise to indicate more or use their hands or head movements to say yes or no.

6:59 So basically what you do is for example, in this video, when I'm playing with my little one, I have the ball and I will roll it to her and she'll roll it back to me. But what you'll notice is when I have the ball, I pause and I wait for my little one to actually look up at me or give me some form of communication that she wants me to roll it again. And it's when I get that communication, I would actually roll her the ball back.

7:26 So you can do that when you're playing with your baby on the swing or when they're kind of wanting more food, or if you're wanting another block in play, what you do is particularly when you're on the swing, you would go, "Ready, set." And then I would wait and wait for your baby to look up at you or make a noise, and then once they do that, you go, "Go!" And then you push them. Or if they want more food, I would wait till the tray is empty and then hold the food beside them and then wait for them to look at the food and then you...

7:58 and when they do that, I would say, "You want more." And put more food on their plate. So pausing is really important because it gives your baby the opportunity to communicate to you in some way and it teaches them that communication is a two-way street so that someone can help you, but you need to ask, or someone can enjoy a game with you, but you need to communicate with them. The other thing that you wanna do is turn off the TV, even if it's on in the background, because research has shown when the TV's on in the background, us as parents often get really distracted, even though we are not watching the TV, we will get distracted at some point and then we're not as responsive to our little ones.

8:34 And also research has shown that when you sit a baby in front of the TV, it doesn't actually help foster their communication because communication is all about engaging with another person. So the TV doesn't actually respond when your baby makes a sound, like giving them a smile or doing some actions instead of kind of stays today. So it doesn't actually give them any kind of response, but as parents, or as people, when a baby makes a sound or giggles, we automatically give that baby attention and engage that baby.

9:05 And by engaging with the baby, we're reinforcing that communication attempt. Now there's also lots of information out there at the moment on baby signing, which is basically a kind of a formalized program where you are taught gestures to link with certain words and you can start using that with your baby to try and improve their communication skills. Researcher is showing there's little evidence to actually say that it does improve your baby's language skills if your baby is typically developing, but if you want to do it, that's fine, there's no harm in doing it, but if you don't wanna do it, then that's also fine.

9:40 Doing these other strategies will help in your baby's overall language development. So those are the really simple activities that you can do with your little one to help their overall language development and learn their first words. Make sure you click on that free PDF document below, and hopefully I'll see you next week. We'll all sharing more parenting tips and tricks. (upbeat music)