Baby's first words - Is repetition best way to develop them

Classact

At what stage does baby begin to repeat words? Also what is best then to help teach words?

Is it constant pointing and repetition?

Any advise or recommendations would be greatly appreciated............

BostonB

Interesting question. I googled and found this
http://www.sporcle.com/games/Tuvon/baby_words
http://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby-talk-your-babys-first-words

Just be careful what you say in the car if someone pulls out in front of you.

Cat Melodeon

My Public Health Nurse gave me some excellent printouts from the National Literacy Trust in the UK that have been specially developed for encouraging babies' communication skills. The program is called Talk To Your Baby and you can find the resources here:
http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/talk_to_your_baby/resources
The Quick Tips section is particularly good.

Repetition, rhymes, stories and narrating everything you do ("we're putting on your socks" etc) work well with babies. We also printed off photos of family members and everyday items (his shoes, the dogs, his cot) etc as he more readily responded to and identified objects he actually was familiar with rather than more abstract ones in picture books. He didn't reliably say Dada until 9 months, later with everything else to the point that I started to worry, but despite a relatively slow start he is now flying it at 22 months with more words than I can keep track of and the occasional 3-4 word sentence. They all go at their own pace though.

Roselm

Hi guys, check out this website http://www.talktoyourbaby.org.uk/home

Grawns

Bridget's first proper word was "up" ( under a year) as we always always said that we picked her up.

caprilicious

Cat Melodeon wrote: »

....

Repetition, rhymes, stories and narrating everything you do ("we're putting on your socks" etc) work well with babies. We also printed off photos of family members and everyday items (his shoes, the dogs, his cot) etc as he more readily responded to and identified objects he actually was familiar with rather than more abstract ones in picture books.

That's a really good idea. I've done that from day one with my daughter, narrated everything we do. I live in the sticks with no neighbours nearby, so it could be quiet at times the first few months on maternity leave with my daughter.
It passed the day chatting away to her as I went about my business.
She's 14 months old now & has a vocabulary of about 30 words (although 'No' is the most popular one at the moment )

I also read to her at least once a day, just short little open the flap books mainly, but she loves it & it has definitely improved her vocabulary

BostonB

Cat Melodeon wrote: »

M...They all go at their own pace though.

You could have 10 kids, teach them all the same, and some will learn quicker than others. Some will be chatty and some won't.

angelfire9

Aisling has been saying MaMa for a few weeks now

I'm delighted

Daddy is not so impressed :rolleyes:

Her big sister was yapping at 12 months and now at 9 she has a vocabulary most adults would be proud of! Her 3rd class school report described her as "very eloquent"
She always has her nose in a book though

Hopefully no. 2 will follow in her footsteps

We talk to her all the time and don't believe in using "baby" language, a bottle is a bottle, a soother is a soother it wrecks my head hearing kids 3-4 using "baby words" for things when they should know the real words at that stage!

lonestargirl

Narrating what you are doing is great. I was reading that it is better to use names that pronouns as these can cause confusion e.g. "mammy is changing Liam's nappy" rather than "I'm changing your nappy".

bulmersgal

caprilicious wrote: »

She's 14 months old now & has a vocabulary of about 30 words (although 'No' is the most popular one at the moment )

wow that's amazing i reckon Elisha has about 10 she's 14 months too. Her favourite is Heya! We've been really trying to say as much to her as possible and have notice the words are coming quicker now a new proper word every week, loads of baby talk i can't understand.

She doesn't sit down to read a book, would love that as i love reading. Hopefully someday soon

caprilicious

Angelfire9, that's a good point. We never did the 'baby language' with our daughter either. ie, its a cow, not a moo cow etc

Bulmersgal thanks she's in nursery 3 days a week & picks up a lot there too. The 'No' thing has been going on all weekend so I'm really hoping she'll change the record soon

She only developed an interest in books in the last 2 months or so, we had a few open the flap books & she loves those
'Hiya' is one of her main words too (said in a strong Dublin accent even though we live in Kilkenny ), but she's terrible if we take her shopping, she has to say 'Hiya' to EVERYONE in the supermarket.

cynder

one of my ladies first words was important (approx 16 months old) the other was money....

My sons first word was DIRT and my other lad couldn't even say Dada at 3.

StudentDad

I don't know if repetition is the way to go. With my children my wife and I just spoke to them normally. My eldest is 13 and my youngest 4 and they can all speak perfectly, we have 4. By speaking normally around them and to them they quickly learned how to speak etc. Babies brains are learning computers on overdrive - the amount of information they can absorb is staggering.

SD