So, teaching baby to talk - is it better to be a bit thick?

[macneil]

They say you should talk around babies all the time, as well as to them, and that they'll pick it all up. I'm just wondering, you know, what with my exciting and varied vocabulary, am I just going to present too many words to the baby all at once, and would it be better if I were a bit thick and had a working vocabulary of only 60 or 70 words? Ought I to scale back? This is a very important and serious question, because I need her to beat my friend's baby when it comes to who talks first.

Have just returned to this thread worrying that I was a tad harsh...

am now roaring with laughter!

Surely you jest macneil? You only have to take a look at one of the many threads on what embarrassing things DCs can come out with to know that with language does not come the ability to "negotiate".

LOL LOL and LOL some more at "everything will proceed in a civilised way"

macneil: I have the answer to all of your problems. It's called..............

lying.

What you do, right, is you tell your mate that your child has a vocabulary of (pick a number) and when child refuses to speak you say either "she's shy" or "she's not a performing seal you know, she doesn't just talk to order" The latter being said with an air of huffiness.

oh of course she jests

You do don't you Mcneil..
Mcneil?

batters... PMSL at woman pushing baby over with her foot. WTF???

lol batters

When your baby babbles, just tell your friend that your baby isn't babblng she bilingual and is speaking foreign language.

definitely frances !! DD is 19 months and says maybe 6 words, she has regular phrases that she says, but they are not , well, english ! she understands everything, and prefers to babble...if i get the , 'oh dear, still not talking ' i just smile and say, in an airy fashion, 'oh but of course, she is fluent in Esperanto,so much more challenging, i find !! '

god, once they start talking, they never blardy stop!

why mummy, why mummy , why mummy BUT WHHHHHHYYYYYY MUMMEEEEEEEEEE, I SAID WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY MUUUUMMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEE

I'm sorry Lulumama - did you say people expect an 18 mth old baby to be talking??

excuse my french but wtf?

DD2 is a non-talking 19mo, but I am OK on the competition stakes, because DH has just succeeded in teaching her the difference between her ar*e and her elbow. Oh, the parental pride!!!

To take the OP seriously for a moment, yes, I have also heard that it's a good idea to scale back the complexity of the way you talk to your toddler, if they are struggling with learning to talk (i.e. getting screamingly frustrated, not just thwarting competitive mummy tendencies).

Personally, I feel like a loony saying "doggy gone" instead of "oh dear, the dog has gone away". And second time around I firmly subscribe to the "later she talks the better" argument. There is no room in my brain for any more listening by the time DD1 has finished her interrogation for the day. But if you really want to encourage language development, it might be worth a shot.

The singsong high voice is very important, if you Google "motherese" you'll find lots of info on why mums instinctively do it and how it helps language to form. Might be annoying to non mothers (which is why so many people swear they will never do it before they have any I suppose!) but it does actually serve a very important purpose!

Interseting posts, was kind of wondering the same thing. I do talk to my DD all the time however Grandpa also does as well hence her first comprehendible word was bugger