Talking to babies

There is a lot of literature about how you should talk to your baby at all times to get them used to the sound of language and somehow imprint the idea of vibrating air particles as a means of communication. Indeed, I spent a lot of time at high school researching different theories about how children acquire language and the environment that needs to be in place for this to happen. I find it very worrying working with children where these basic conditions of lots of words, eye contact and conversation practise haven't happened and they find it hard to express themselves in primary school.

The flip side of this is how do you actually talk to a baby. Like with many posts on this blog, this question stems not from wanting to give Jake a good start, but to give him the best start possible. The big problem is that you're used to talking to people who can read your body language and intonation and will respond with words and non verbal communication of their own. Whilst Jake is now at the point where he will regularly smile (pictures when I can get hold of Kelsey's phone!), it's no substitute for a real conversation. Looking at my own approach, and those of my friends and family, there seems to be three main ways of trying to engage in conversation

- talking to him - this is my preferred approach and involves talking to him about what's going to happen that day, what things he can see and current issues in the news. It makes it very hard to do and sometimes his silence makes you feel self-conscious and stops you from talking more.
- talking with him - using eyebrow lifts and tactical pauses in conversation tells Jake that something is expected from him and it's amazing how often he chooses to fill the gap with a coo, a gurgle or some other sound. I guess that this are real conversation skills being learned and people doing this tend to talk about Jake "aren't you a cute little baby? do you want a puppy?".
- responding to him - the third approach is to make his noises and gestures back to him. Last night, for us, and last week, for my mum, we found that he particularly likes it if he pokes his tongue out at you and you then poke your tongue back at him. We had him smiling for a long time just going back and forwards poking our tongues out. I think this is where he learns the importance of eye contact and facial expressions from.

As with all aspects of raising a child, I don't think that any of these approaches are any better or any worse than the others and I have no fear in my mind that Jake will grow up to be fully articulate. It's just going to be fascinating watching him learn how to do it.