Real-Life Conversations
Real-life conversations with our small baby
Our newborns make the cutest mouth shapes and sounds. They're actually imitating mom and dad's mouth movements and words! As their first influencers, we can have beautiful conversations by imitating everything they are doing and by taking turns. They will be taking it all in. They will look at our mouths and hear those noises, and try to produce them back again. While having conversational turns, we help them see that baby says something and mom listens; then, mom responds and baby listens. Mom can also expand her response a little more by adding a few sounds or words at a time and wait and see if baby responds.
Real-life conversations while changing a diaper
Changing diapers, bathing them, dressing them, holding them, nursing them, or playing are perfect instances when we can narrate everything we're doing and wait and see if they respond. Again, mom or dad waits and listens, creating conversational turns. In whatever way our baby responds - a mouth sound, a face movement, a hand wiggle or body movement - we then react and respond back again. We can copy the exact response of our baby and then continue saying more things related to what we just previously said.
Real-life conversations at home
We spend a lot of time in the kitchen as it is, so let's have our baby join us, make them a part of everything we're doing there, and create conversations with them. We can narrate that we're washing a carrot, peeling, cutting, and placing it in a salad bowl. While all of this is going on, our baby might make a sound, make noises, or say a word here and there, so we stop speaking, listen and respond back. We can wait and see if the baby responds again, but if not, then we can just move on with the next thing and continue with narrating. Our babies can join us in everything we're doing at home and we can turn every experience into great conversations.
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Real-life conversations outdoors
Whether in our homes or out and about, wherever we are, any situation is ideal to teach our babies. In a grocery store, for instance, the opportunities are endless. We can take our sweet time and show multiple items to our child, one at a time, talk about them and wait and see for a response. Whether it's a sound only or a word (if they're talking already), once they respond, we imitate back and add a few more words. As our babies grow, we can add longer ideas with more words.
