Bloom Baby Classes guide to encouraging your baby's speech

During your baby’s first years you’ll be amazed of how your little one goes from babbling to knowing how to participate in conversations. Bloom have put together a timeline of what you can expect of your little one’s language development during this exciting time. Remember though that every baby is different and develops at his or her own pace. It’s perfectly normal if your little one reaches these stages a little early or a little late. As a mum of three children all 3 of my girls started talking at different stages they all get there in the end. We have also had support of some amazing speech and language therapists.

Cooper the Caterpillar fun!

Birth to 3 months

These first months are all about your baby’s sounds and incredibly their gestures too. You’ll hear her make vowel and guttural sounds to express herself. Repeat these sounds back to her. She’ll start experimenting with moving her arms, so you might see her shake them if something catches her attention. During these months pay attention to her facial expressions. Through them she’ll let you know if she likes or dislikes something. This is a great time to start reading to your baby - you may feel silly but exposing her to speech and language from such a young age can really help encourage their speech.

4-7 months

From around this time your little one will be paying more attention to the sounds and voices around them. Your baby will probably be most interested in the tone of your voice but she will also start to adjust the tone of her babbles too. Babies become much more responsible to the sounds that you make - introducing simple syllables and words now and they may start repeating those sounds.

8-12 months

By now your baby might be babbling away while you talk to her almost simulating a conversation. Alongside this will hand gestures and she may well be pointing at the objects she wants and imitating words you say. Any familiar objects or people she will recognise and turn to when they are named. Mama and Dada will probably be first words that she recognizes and repeats. At this stage a “word” is any sound that refers to the same person like “mama” “dada” “nana” As your little one tries to imitate those syllables they might sound slightly different such a “mik” for “milk” . Reply with “milk” and over time she will make the correction herself.

At around 12 months your baby might be making sounds of “gibberish” that has variations of understandable speech included. . So, as long as she’s experimenting with sounds that vary in intensity, pitch, and quality, she’s getting ready to talk.

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13-18 months

During these months your little one will start answering your questions by changing her behavior, gestures, or words. She’ll be able to point to “Mummy” and “Daddy” and familiar objects when she hears their name. She’ll have lots of fun playing with you and pointing to animal images and imitating their sounds. She will also start growing her repertoire of words with meaning at this stage too.

19-24 months

Between these months you might see your baby’s language grow rapidly. Your now toddler will know the names of some animals, foods and body parts and maybe some familiar objects around the house. She may be able to make simple one-word statements on places you have been or things she has done. Toddlers are also able to communicate with their needs or wants such as “go park” or “night night”

Remember that the best way to support her language development is through meaningful interactions from an early age. Reading music and song is also a good way to encourage your baby’s language skills too. Bloom baby classes music has been created to teach rhythm and tempo with lots of start and stop elements as well as teaching body awareness to your child.

You can download our new album on itunes or apple music here:

https://music.apple.com/gb/album/bloom-baby-classes/1469191000

Have a listen here!