Baby Talk - when does it stop?

[fredfredgeorgejnr]

I've never really liked baby talk, and pretty much find myself unable to do it despite it likely being useful. Possibly in consequence DD was certainly not early in her speech (under 50 words at age 2) however by age 3 her vocabulary and speech was excellent, so I don't feel long term it was a bad thing - not that I could've really gone against my nature anyway.

DD is now 3.5, her speech is very good, but some people who talk a lot with her -especially MIL- are still using real baby talk around her, using a smaller vocabulary than DD and exaggerated pronunciation with her. Not that it actually matters as far as I can see, but it's got me wondering when baby talk actually stops for most people?

I think there will be a wide range of answers to that question as there is such a wide range of children's speaking skills and parental communication styles.

For me and my DS I never used the kind of infantilised speech that seems common (babble and nonsense/baby words like moo-moo instead of cow) but did use the kind of infant directed speech as described here. As his speech took off, we gradually responded to him in a more adult way, and now at 2.5 he is spoken to in a nearly fully adult manner.

I think you need to have a firm and friendly chat with your MIL and explain how much it would help your DD if she would speak normally to her.

I would have a word with your MIL. Explaining to her that children are very good at speech learning and she can only learn to speak like adults if she's talked to like adults. I'm sure your MIL meant well.

Personally I never use baby words with my DDs. And DD2 is only 4mo. In fact we actively repeat the right word for DD1 when she was younger. Like when she says choo choo, we would answer yes it's a train.

DD1 is 3.9yo btw. No one talks baby to her. But like you say it doesn't actually matter at the end of the day.

I'm sure MIL (and it's not just MIL, but she's always been at the more extreme end of the baby talk spectrum, quite unlike my mother) means very well and different ranges of interaction all seem great to me. It just got me wondering when it generally stopped in those that do use it.

TwoLittleTerrors, DD gets most of her communication from us and nursery, all of who talk in an adult way, so I might leave MIL speaking baby as an experiment to see when she stops. I'd've just thought that when the kid returns "Is that a choo choo?" with "No, it's a diesel train." she might adjust the speech.

CultureSucksDownWords The IDS link is interesting, I wasn't utterly convinced by the evidence that it's useful, I can believe it helps the early acquisition of language, but that's not the ultimate aim, and there was other evidence that it made no odds.

fredfredgeorgejnr oh yes the correcting I dont' remember when DD1 started doing it. But she definitely does it now.

What's wrong with choo choos and moo moos...? I know plenty of very intelligent children who grew up with 'baby words' and it certainly hasn't impacted their language development. But maybe I'm wrong and should be teaching my baby it's an 'automobile', not a 'brum brum'!

Doesnt bother me if people choose to talk to dd using baby words, in fact I find it quite funny when MIL will say "Oooh look a birdie, tweet tweet, birdie" and dd says "Thats a magpie Nanna"

Weve never really used baby words for stuff and DD (3.1) has a really wide vocabulary, but it really wouldnt bother me if other people chose to use baby words.

The only one that gets on my tits is Baba. "Ahhh look at the Baba" ?rage? "Go and play with the other Babas"

Mamushka there are other words between the spectrum of Brum Brum ?? Automobile.

Like Car.

Mamushka there's nothing wrong with it, I just cannot do it myself, and find baby talk annoying when done in others - it's not so much the words but the odd to my ear intonation that I dislike. But it's a personal dislike of mine, and not something that is wrong.

The research suggested that it was very common with only a few cultures not doing it, so it's extremely unlikely to be at all negative to language development, and has nothing to do with intelligence...

With my adult learned prejudices though it does feel the same as when people talk to people with disabilities in the same adjusted/simplified speech in a very patronising way. Obviously a 3 year old may not have that same feelings, but they're normally quite forthright about not being babied.

As I said, I don't think there's anything wrong with it, I just wondered when people stopped doing it!