Does your baby babble a lot? Many parents are thrilled when their six month-old starts babbling like a brook and I’m just as guilty as the next one of being convinced they are trying to tell us something. My daughter started babbling at six months and her babbling continued for months – in all seriousness, she seemed to develop her own language and babbled incessantly away about something.
But according to the pediatric and developmental experts, babbling is just that. It’s a way for babies to play with their vocal cords. Your baby plays with their fingers and their toes when they discover they have them and they play with the sounds they can make when they discover those too. You may wonder for a moment how they are just discovering it, but remember – your baby isn’t born knowing they can do things, they have to learn that – so while crying is an automatic response – learning to use their vocal cords for something else means they need to learn they have vocal cords.
Primitive versus Mature
Our brains have two areas that control our use of the vocal cords. The primitive area is in charge of primal responses including crying. This is the area of the brain that learns that there are vocal cords and a range of sounds that they can make. As your baby develops this area of the brain – learning a range of intonation and mimicry, they will begin using the more mature part of the brain – the portion that allows them to associate names with objects and more.
So while your baby isn’t necessarily ready to converse when they are babbling, you should definitely encourage their babbling because it will help them to keep talking and let’s be honest, when your baby babbles at you and you are talking back to them, you are teaching them that conversation is about give and take and who doesn’t enjoy babbling at their baby?
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