to find this way of talking odd

[hairytriangle]

'come to mummy' 'mummy doesn't want you to do that, does she' when a person is talking about themself?

Is it not really confusing for children?

We never do that with anyone other than small children, do we?

(or am I just odd?)

I do that! I think I did it when DD was little so she understand who mummy was but it's stuck and I still do it. Yes, i agree it's an odd way to talk, but now no. 2's on the way i think i'll be talking like this for a few more years.

no my mum does this to ds
i'm sure he thinks he has 3 grandmas - dh's mum, my mum, and the one she keeps talking about

I do that, talking about oneself in the 3rd person but only to my children obviously

I guess its how they learn to call you mummy?

My children dont seem to know my real name, because I never say "come to Sloany" or whatever.

So if you said "come to me" or "I dont want you to do that" then I guess they wouldn't know what to refer to you as?!

Isn't it called Motherese or something, this way we talk to our children in a sing song and do certain words and phrases...

Well Annie certainly doesn't talk like that. We think it's childish, don't we?

No, it's hard enough to give children a grounding in the mysteries of English grammar without teaching them a wrong set first off that they have to unlearn. Keep it simple, that's what Annie says - er, what I say.

Here this sort of touches on the lack of pronouns

oooh! I seee!!!!! I didn't realise that - thanks all! :)

(I still won't be doing it, though LOL)

I think its been proven not to hinder their speech development - apparently parents who try and "second guess" nature by speaking to their babies like adults dont end up having super great at speech children particularly (I'll try and find a link later but give me a few mins)

It does sound strange but we do it for a reason. Pronouns are one of the last things to make sense to a child and naming yourself serves a useful function for a child who cannot grasp the rather complicated function of pronouns. It's all part of motherese.

Do you have children yet Hairytriangle?

If not, I wont be patronising and say that you will do it, because you might not if you feel a right dick doing it, but you might be surprised how naturally it comes once you have your baby (if I'm wrong and you already have kids then you have proved me wrong)

Its sort of innate.

There must be a natural reason for it. I think its fairly universal too.

Would love to know if anyone said they wouldn't do it but ended up doing it anyway - almost like you can't control it - not sure if its that innate though. Anyone?

You know what I find really difficult, is when I run to the aid of a child I dont know at soft play or whatever, who's stuck in one of those cars or something and I'll say "here, let mummy help you" then realise I'm not their mummy so I'm struggling for a "name" to give myself because for some reason it doesn't seem right to just use my name?!?

Weirdness.

I always thought it sounded a bit silly when people referred to themselves as 'mummy' but I do it now.

DH has spent the last week showing 22 mo DD some baby pictures and saying "look, it's you!" and now when you ask who it is she says "you".

I still do it now and ds is 6

Not so much but an example would be ' please come and hold mummies hand'.

Mostly I use I and my but old habits and that

I thought I wouldn't do it. And I don't do all that horsies, choo choo, ta rubbish. But it does come naturally. Because you say to a child 'give the ball to me' and they struggle because 'me' is them isn't it? And they already have the ball. But you are me too? How does that work? And how can you be you and me at the same time. Eh? It's difficult for a child. 'Give the ball to mama' leaves no room for confusion. And it's pleasing and encouraging for the child to be able to communicate effectively and understand language. That's what's important in the first instance. You spend the first couple of months of language acquisition naming things, it's just part of that.

Hmm, now, if it was photos, yes I probably would point to them and say "Mum" and "[DC]". In fact I'm fairly sure I did, or if I didn't, I should have! (Memory like sieve.) But not in sentences like "come to Mummy". Actually I think mostly I said "come here", so the noun/pronoun wasn't an issue.

I do it when I speak to my cats as in 'please don't jump on the table, sweetheart. Mummy will give you some food in a second, she just has to finish putting the potatoes on' or 'yes, mummy's very pleased you've brought her half a rat, but perhaps you could take it outside, darling'.

I may be slightly potty, though.

Baby arrives soon... I suspect if I do it to cats, I'll do it to baby. I like it, and glad to learn about the pronouns thing, as now I can justify it to myself too!

I'm sure we are all guilty of doing it. I suspect it's because we are all desperate for our children to say 'Mummy' before 'Daddy' or 'Rover'

I honestly dont think my children's first words would have been Mama if I'd not constantly referred to myself as it for that first year.

That's true about the pronouns being potentially confusing actually, hadn't thought of it that way.

I never did "ta" by the way, I always said thank you and so did my children "fankoo" at first of course...not sure why I just hated "ta". Probably because my friend, in an effort to show how clever her child wasn't was would dangle a biscuit in front of him and keep whipping it away if he didn't say "ta" (this is at about 14 months)

lol @ Bongo

and yes sloany I haven't been blessed with any children yet, how did you guess? LOL

I do this and DD (3) does understand what I'm rambling about. If I say "Mummy needs a cup of tea" she'll say "Does she? I mean do you?". try not to do it though.

Ta is awful.

I've never done it. It felt a bit odd so I just didn't do it. Both dds seemed to figure out that I'm Mummy without any problems!

Lol HT I used to listen to mums in the street and wanted to say "you sound like a fucking imbecile and what is with that sick stained fleece"

Now its me

LOL sloany I'm not quite that bothered by it (yet!) except maybe times like now when I have raging PMT!

Sick stained fleeces I've had plenty of experience with neices - dirty nappies and sick don't really bother me at all.

We grew up calling my parents by their first names (their choice) perhaps that's part of why I find it odd. We never did the 'moomoo' and 'oink oink' thing - living on a farm, we called a cow a cow and a pig a pig!

I do it!! I never thought of it as being odd, but I suppose it is! I also say everything twice, the second time being even more high pitched. I must look like a right noodle, hey ho :-)

the only mother I met who didn;t do thjis (because she 'felt silly' - also never did 'look, dd wgat's that? Yes it is a duck, well done, now what noise does it make?' etc) had her 2yo assessed for language delay because at 28m he only said mama and more.
Result of assessment: nothing wrong with child, just isn't being spoken to appropriately. Very sad.