The baby's first words

Just like adults communicate to express our feelings, to relate to other people, or to develop our ideas, babies also communicate with their environment from the moment they are born.

How does a baby communicate when they haven't learned to talk yet? The different stages a baby goes through before learning to speak are a training to achieve this goal. Babies, from birth, communicate through crying, gestures, and smiles.

Speech Development Stages

• From three months onwards, the baby starts to discover their voice and finds it amusing to hear themselves making cooing sounds or saying vowels, for example, “oooooh”. It is during this time that the “ajooo” sound appears.

• At six months, the baby starts babbling and begins to mix consonants and vowels like “pa-pa-pa-pa”, “te-te-te”. They try to imitate sounds and turn towards the voice of mom or dad.

• Around ten months, they alternate different syllables with different intonations. They have also learned to use non-verbal language by waving goodbye or shaking their head to indicate no.

• From twelve months onwards, the baby says their first intentional word, meaning they were combining syllables before without knowing their meaning. Now, they call for mom and dad knowing it refers to them.

• From 12 to 18 months, they summarize what they want to say in a single word. For example, if they say “car”, it could mean “I want to get in the car” or “we are going in the car” or simply that they see a car.

• After 18 months, they will gradually expand their vocabulary and be able to introduce pronouns, determiners, verbs, and connectors into their conversations. By the age of 4, their language is very similar to that of an adult.

Not all babies go through all the stages, nor do they do so within the indicated months, as each baby has their own pace of development. Don't worry if at six months they don't say “pa-pa-pa”, they might say it at seven, eight, or even nine months. Just like walking, each baby will do it when they are ready, not when adults dictate it.

Baby's First Words

A baby's first words are those that adults repeat the most, so it's not surprising that those words are “dad” or “mom”. Also, these words are the easiest for a baby to pronounce as they repeat several syllables.

Other words they will easily learn are “no,” “give me,” “come,” “water,” or “more.”

They will also quickly learn onomatopoeias like “woof woof” for a dog or “vroom vroom” for vehicles.

Tips to Stimulate Baby's Speech

Babies learn by imitation, so the most important thing to stimulate a baby's speech is to talk to them a lot while looking directly at their face.

• Talk to them a lot, explaining everything you are doing from the moment they are born: “mommy is going to change your diaper.”
• Imitate any sounds they make and repeat “mommy” and “daddy” constantly so they can imitate you.
• Reading to them is also very positive for stimulating speech. Stimulate them with new sounds and intonations.
• Songs and games are also great tools for stimulating them, using rhyme and repeated sounds. You don't need to know all the children's songs, just add a melody to what you are narrating.
• It's very amusing to hear their expressions and see how they are developing their speech abilities, but remember to correct them so they learn correctly.
• Address your baby by their name.
• Talk to them about the objects present so they can relate the word to the object.

At what age did your baby say their first word? What was it?