When do kids start learning? Preschool? Daycare? The short answer, kids start learning from the second they’re born.
It’s easy to say that newborns have started learning from the second they take their first breath. Of course they’re learning, everything around them is new. Everything from opening their eyes to breathing, and seeing lights and hearing sounds that aren’t muffled like their underwater (because basically they were). Everything they do, see, hear, feel and taste is a learning experience. So how do we know when an infant is gathering the right information?
Impossible Task
It may seem like an impossible task to teach a newborn anything. Hell we are just trying to figure out how to be parents, let alone trying to teach our tiny humans about life. Thankfully there are many experts who can help us with such a thing. And here’s the cliff notes on what they have to say. When a baby is babbling this is a trigger to let us adults know that their brains are open to receiving new information. Similar to how we adults would be responsive and questioning within a conversation, a baby babbles in the same manner.
Talk Back
OK, so my baby is talking back to me and I have no idea what they’re saying, what do I do now?
Well for starters you can be responsive. It could seem a little crazy to feel like you are having a very one-sided conversation and in some aspects it’s going to take a little bit of acting on you are part. But overall you just need to be responsive and have a conversation with baby.
What To Say
OK, but what am I supposed to say to someone who doesn’t understand anything I’m saying?
All right that’s a fair question. But talking to a baby is not much different than talking to somebody who speaks another language. You’re going to talk to them slowly, with expressions and you’re going to talk to them with hand gestures. Try to talk about the thing that they are acknowledging and say a lot more with your body language then you do with the words that are coming out of your mouth. Allow them to talk back, respond to their cues, and make it conversational. Because at the end of the day you are absolutely correct, they do not understand what you were saying but they do understand the way you are saying it. Pretend you’re a mime. Use lot’s of body language to tell a story and practice being obnoxious for when your little ones become teens.
What to be careful of
The most important thing you can do when talking to a babbling baby is be present. Acknowledge the fact that they’re talking to you. Look at them when you talk back to them. Acknowledge the thing they are babbling at whether it be a light, tree, a person. Responding to a baby while staring at your phone is not ok. It is only going to create a poor connection between the information as the baby is trying to find and the answers that you are providing.
Yes, you will be talking to yourself. So talk often, be excited, use your body language and hone those acting skills. You don’t need to be the next Ryan Reynolds (as much as your wife may wish you were). You only need to act enough to get the point across to the baby. The words will be there soon enough. Enjoy this part for now. Cheers!