to think they should cut out the baby talk?

[Listzilla]

Please don't kill me, I'm perfectly willing to accept it if I am BU due to the fog of late pregnancy exhaustion and hormones, so try and be nice

My parents mind DD for two days a week while I'm in work; she spends my other 3 work days in creche and the weekends with us.

Lately we've been having confused moments with her, where she's insisting on using words other than the ones she used to use; a sheep, for example, is now being referred to as a 'bala', and we seem to have lost chicken, cow and a good few others as well.

It turns out that my mum is calling a sheep a 'baa-lamb', a deer a 'bambi', and a chicken a 'cockadoodledoo', and other things along the same lines; not just animals, but food and things as well.

I know it's probably unreasonable and petty of me, but it's annoying me a bit that we're teaching her the right words for things, and she's ending up using made-up versions that we don't always understand. I'm loving that she's starting to be able to ask for things she wants now, and it's no use to anyone if she's asking and asking for something and we haven't a clue what she's saying because she's using a word that we don't recognise. Given that she spends time with three different sets of minders during the week, it seems obvious to me that we should all call things by their actual names so the others have some chance of working out what she's saying!

I've asked a few times but it seems to be happening more and more, and I'm reluctant to keep labouring the point if I'm just being silly. I know that their time with her is theirs, and I don't interfere if I can help it, but it really would make life a bit more straightforward for us if they'd stick to our approach! And to be honest, I just don't like her using baby versions of words when she's perfectly well able for the real ones. I can't shake the feeling that if that's the way we want to parent (and we both do, most emphatically!), then that's the way it should be done.

Go on then, pass the biscuits : )

I have a friend who uses made-up words with her DS. I've minded him on a couple of occasions and it's been frustrating for him and for me that I often don't understand him. He kept telling me "guggugs", turns out he wanted a drink (glug glugs).

I thought of this thread just now.

Whilst driving, an ambulance came past us, sirens going, blue lights flashing.

Me: Look, DS, a nee-naw

DS: No Mummy, it's an ambulance

Thanks Pag - will do - hijack over and out

This reminds me of a joke my dad once told me.

A father is taking his little boy for a country walk. "Look Daddy," says the little boy, "there's a moo moo."

"We use proper names, darlings," says Daddy. "It's a cow."

A little further down the lane the little boy says "Look Daddy, there's a baa baa."

"No, darling," corrects the daddy, "that's a lamb."

Just before they get home they pass one last field. "Daddy, Daddy," cries the little boy, "look at the oink oinks."

"Those are pigs," sighs the daddy.

That night, the little boy goes up to bed and the daddy settles down to read him a bedtime story. "Which book shall we read tonight?" he asks.

The little boy thinks hard and, looking very serious, replies, "Winnie the Shit."

[I didn't say it was a good joke and doesn't help in this situation at all.]

Ha ha!!!!

OP: think of your child as bilingual. In time, she will learn to say "look at the lovely little lamb" to other English speakers.

To her grandparents, she will say "ooooh looky looky sweetie ickle baalamb".

Don't worry about her grammar either - she will acquire grammar for English and for grandparent-speak.

Just relax and wait for it to pass. :o

I like baby talk and babies like it too.

It is a natural way of talking to children and the simple sounds and sing song tones help them to aquire language.

They all grow out of it.

TBH if your DD is 18 mths and already using sentences I dont think you have anything to be worried about.

I totally agree with 'never correct a small child's speech'. Never ever (unless they say something horribly rude of course)