Darius is starting to interact a lot with us these days.

He babbles a lot to us when he catches sight of us or when we talk to him, sometimes only ‘hoo’, ‘hoo’, sometimes in different sounds (bua, ma, mu, ooh, ell), sometimes very animated complete with excited expressions and hands flapping as if really telling us something. It’s a joy now to talk to him and having him respond to us, nevermind it’s all gibberish.

I believe that his response is due to us talking to him all the time so I will continue to talk to him more, describing my actions to him and the surroundings, for example, changing his diaper, I will tell him, “Darius, changing your diaper now”. For the surroundings, I tell him, “Goldfish, kitty, kitchen, your milk, flower…etc” when I carried him daily around the house.

Even my mom was amazed that he was able to ‘talk’ to her in his baby language for quite a while when she talked to him in baby and normal language. She remarked that I must have talked a lot to him. Well, I have to since he’s the only other human being in the house during the day. ^_~ However, he still responds more to baby language, like ooh, hoo, and ah-goos when we speak these to him than normal language.

According to baby center:

You can encourage your baby’s attempts at communication by mirroring or imitating his expressions and sounds. He may try to imitate you now, too. Say “baa” and he may try to say it back.

Reacting when your baby makes noises or tries to say something will help your baby learn the importance of language. It’ll also help him better understand cause and effect. It’s great for his self-esteem, too. He’ll begin to realize that what he says makes a difference.

We followed this from the time he started cooing by responding to his every coos with coos back at him or asking him questions in normal language. “Oh you want to play ah?”. After speaking a sentence to him, it’s best to wait for a while for him to respond so he knows he have to talk back, before continuing with more talk.

Vincent and I also talk to each other while he’s sitting or lying in between us or around us hoping he will catch language and the understanding of conversation from us.

These really help to speed up his language development and interactions.

Here’s a video of his babbling. Once he sees us holding the camera, he will either look intently or babbles at it.

So when can he start saying, “mama and baba”? We have been saying these two words to him for him to repeat after us ever since he was born…*grin.

No related posts.