Hi All
I've noticed recently that my DSD (age 5) is starting to revert to baby talk. Examples being calling things by what I would class as baby names: 'Foo Soo' for 'Fruit Shoot' (before I get flamed she was referring to her Nanna giving her said drink, not me!) and 'pinsess' for 'princess' along with generally a higher pitched voice and decreased number of syllables in the words she's forming. Previous to this, her speech was exactly as I would expect for a 5 year old - wide vocabulary, fully formed sentences, good grammar.
It seems to be more apparent when we pick her up from her mum's - the first few hours we have her, her speech is very baby-ish but then within a couple of hours she's back to talking normally. I know her mum is more protective of her than we are in our approach to parenting - she can play in the garden unsupervised here and we encourage her to dress herself, brush her teeth and wipe her bum, all of which her mum stills does for her. I'm not 'bashing' DSD's mum here - she does a great job, just stating we have different approaches to parenting which is fine, and may or may not be relevant.
I have thought that the baby talk thing may just be a phase like going off certain foods for a month or two or liking certain toys over others, but it hasn't really gone away - I'd say it's been going on about 3 months now. Our current approach to the baby talk is to either ignore it, or ask DSD to explain what she means because 'Breadstick/Daddy' can't understand you?
Really, I guess I'd just like reassurance that this is normal child behaviour and not an indicator of anything bigger - bullying/upset/trauma that DSD might be hiding or trying to cope with.
Any advice or experience welcome!