Mothering › Mothering Discussion Forums › Parenting › Ages and Stages › Toddlers › How old is too old for baby talk?
New Posts  All Forums:
 

How old is too old for baby talk?

post #1 of 37
10/25/10 at 2:38pm
Thread Starter 
I mean, you talking baby talk?

My son is 13 months old, and i think I can stretch it until this next baby is born. But we were messing around with our cell phones a few days ago, and I just listened to a 7 minute recording of me having a 'conversation' with my son. It's almost incomprehensible. Does baby talk harm speech development?
Sponsored Links
post #2 of 37
10/25/10 at 2:48pm
I think birth is too old for baby talk. I'm just NOT a fan of it, at all. We don't use it in our house. When DS was a little baby, I would say more baby-ish things (like, "You are so cute! Yes you are! So cute!") in a soft/sweet voice, but I never used words like "wittle" for little or anything like that.

I think if you're just using a soft/sweet voice, repetitive and descriptive conversation, you are fine. If you're changing real words to baby-ish words, it's probably time to stop, so that your son will hear the correct pronunciation as he begins to talk. That's just my non-expert opinion though.
post #3 of 37
10/25/10 at 2:57pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tulpen88 View Post
I think birth is too old for baby talk.
I agree.
post #4 of 37
10/25/10 at 3:16pm
We never spoke baby talk. We talked to my DD as though she understood normal speech patterns from birth.
post #5 of 37
10/25/10 at 3:56pm
We've never used baby talk either. Our voice/pitch did change when DD was little but that's about it. We do use some of DD's words, though, because it's really hard not to when she says them so often (so yogurt smoothies have officially become "purple yogurt" at our house ).
post #6 of 37
10/25/10 at 8:11pm
I've always pretty much just talked to DS as I would to anyone else, as has DH. But I do tend to talk in third person to him sometimes ("Mommy is going to take a shower now"), I don't know why, he seems to grasp it better than when I say "I"???

I guess I don't understand baby talk & always need a translation when other people talk like that...
post #7 of 37
10/25/10 at 8:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by crunchy_mommy View Post
I've always pretty much just talked to DS as I would to anyone else, as has DH. But I do tend to talk in third person to him sometimes ("Mommy is going to take a shower now"), I don't know why, he seems to grasp it better than when I say "I"???
Pronouns are pretty tricky for little kids. Certainly you can use them, but it's a big concept that when you (Mom) say 'I' he has to interpret it not as himself, but as someone else, however, when he says 'I' it means himself.

Saying 'Mommy is doing this,' as narrative is easier for them.

We have a few odd words that sneak in, but for the most part we don't use much baby talk, and never have. We're more rigid about it now as DS1 is involved with pretty intense speech therapy as we help him to use language. If you found the baby talk fairly incomprehensible, I would gently suggest that it's time to segue to more adult speech as your son is making those connections now, and hearing the correct words and rhythms of speech is very important.
post #8 of 37
10/25/10 at 8:46pm
I don't understand why people don't like baby talk. My understanding is that baby talk is an instinctive thing and that it helps children with language development rather than hinder it. Anyway, to the OP, I would just do what comes naturally. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer.
post #9 of 37
10/25/10 at 8:50pm
Thread Starter 
ouch! ok, it looks like I need to at least tone it down a bit. I'm honestly not sure where it comes from-- I never thought I'd be a big baby talker. I definitely don't want to do anything that will confuse ds further.
post #10 of 37
10/25/10 at 8:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mamazee View Post
I don't understand why people don't like baby talk. My understanding is that baby talk is an instinctive thing and that it helps children with language development rather than hinder it. Anyway, to the OP, I would just do what comes naturally. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer.
I've seen research from both sides. My understanding is that the sing-song quality of baby talk is a positive, but distortion of words is not. For example, elongating the sounds in a word, 'loooook, it's a caaaat' and saying it with lyrical tone is positive, but shortening or changing words, 'wookie iz a kwitty kat!' is detrimental.

Our SLP really emphasizes using proper terms from the get go- though she also uses a very exaggerated tone as she does so.
post #11 of 37
10/25/10 at 8:59pm
The only research I have read regarding baby talk is that it's pretty natural and something that most of us are just hardwired to do. I don't see how it would be confusing to a kid unless you always spoke in baby talk and never progressed in your conversations with him. I would bet that the way you speak to him now is different than the way you spoke 2, 4, 6 months ago.

I would really just go with the flow on this and not overthink it. 13 months is still pretty little IMO. It's only pretty recently that I started saying "water" and not "wawa" to my son - for some reason that was a baby talk holdout. I still refer to myself in the third person quite a bit, though I am trying to use the pronoun "I" more often.
post #12 of 37
10/25/10 at 9:37pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mamazee View Post
I don't understand why people don't like baby talk. My understanding is that baby talk is an instinctive thing and that it helps children with language development rather than hinder it.
I think I personally just don't understand it... maybe I'm missing that 'instinct' lol!! It just would never occur to me to call water 'wawa' or little 'wittle' or use words like binkie (or is it blinkie???) and baba (I hear them all the time but have no idea what either means???)
post #13 of 37
10/25/10 at 9:59pm
Well, lately with DD I've been realizing how dumb DH and I sound.

Sometimes it seems the only thing we can think of to say to her is, "Hi....Hi there...Hii..." in the sing-song, higher pitched voice. I think it's because when she smiles we kind of melt and our brains go dead.

We never used baby-talk when it came to words. We do use higher pitched voices and emphasize or stretch certain sounds.

We've picked up certain words from our DS: Sockies (Socks) and Choo-choos (trains, although he can say trains perfectly he just prefers to use the sound effect word) He knows the correct words for these things though but he just came up with his own variation and prefers to use it.

I don't believe we've ever made up words or distorted them. We're both a little put off by it when others do it so maybe it's just a personal preference.

Just thought of this: My grandmother actually uses stereotypical "baby-talk". She will ALWAYS say, "Goo goo ga ga.." and so on to our babies for the first YEAR. I have no idea why she does it but the kids always seem to get a kick out of it.
post #14 of 37
10/25/10 at 10:28pm
Thread Starter 
Yeah... I think I do sound pretty silly. I switch words around as in:

"Oh baby waby, you know mama loves you up-es! Yesh she does! She loves you so much-es! But you can't kicky mama no mores because deres a sistah in her tums! Yuppers!".

Totally nutty, cannot stop myself.
post #15 of 37
10/26/10 at 1:42am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Artichokie View Post
We never spoke baby talk. We talked to my DD as though she understood normal speech patterns from birth.
post #16 of 37
10/26/10 at 1:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by mamazee View Post
I don't understand why people don't like baby talk. My understanding is that baby talk is an instinctive thing and that it helps children with language development rather than hinder it. Anyway, to the OP, I would just do what comes naturally. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer.
I would say that there is a significant difference between incomprehensible speech (which the OP seems to have been using) and motherese or parentese. The former involves making up words rather than using the actual words. The latter has more to do with speaking in a somewhat simplified and repititve way (but still mimicking actual conversational flow).

http://www.education.com/reference/a...uage-learning/
post #17 of 37
10/26/10 at 3:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Artichokie View Post
We never spoke baby talk. We talked to my DD as though she understood normal speech patterns from birth.
x2
post #18 of 37
10/26/10 at 10:15am
I agree with the person that said it should stop at birth. I never ever spoke baby talk with my son. He's bilingual, has been speaking in sentences since 15 months, had a vocabulary of hundreds of words by then. I don't think he would have been able to do this when I had spoken babytalk with him, "because he was little". I did use less complicated sentences, with a lot of repetition. "Look, there is a dog. A big black dog."
I also feel it is disrespectful to a child to talk babytalk, as if I wouldn't value his opinions, his intellect, he being a real person, with thoughts and feelings.
Just my 2 cents..
post #19 of 37
10/26/10 at 10:19am
I used baby talk (or "motherese" apparently) with my older dd, and she was also very very advanced with language. Some things are not controlled by what we do. My younger dd is somewhat advanced but not like my first was.
post #20 of 37
10/26/10 at 11:54am
I don't distort words to the point of being "baby talk", but I definitely add "y" to everything. We "flushy" the toilet and say birdy, kitty, doggy instead of bird, cat or dog. We also "brusha brusha brusha" our teeth and "scrubba scrubba scrubba" our hands. I don't think that's detrimental to my son's language development, but who knows.
New Posts  All Forums:
 
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Toddlers
Mothering › Mothering Discussion Forums › Parenting › Ages and Stages › Toddlers › How old is too old for baby talk?