Neat article

[soapfaerie]

Kyle gets a running commentary of our day, haha. I think it engages him and makes him feel like he is involved. And a greater vocabulary is pretty fabulous too...
Baby Talk: The Hidden Benefit to Chattering Like a Moron
Most everyone I know has the habit of talking to their babies. I don’t just mean saying, “Oo-chie woo-chie you’re too gorgeous.”

Comments

[tatianne]

I'll be perfectly honest - I didn't read all this. I skimmed it though and get it. My experience is STRONG for talking ALL THE TIME to baby. When it was just me & Andrew I talked to him constantly. I narrated his entire world. Even things like when he was in the "baby bucket" and I was folding laundry holding up each piece, "look, this is mommy's blue shirt, I'm folding my blue shirt..." endless chatter. Which is hard for me, I'm not a talker. But it came naturally. Anyway. When a year later you have a 2nd baby. And a year after that you have a 3rd baby ... the chances of you forming a coherent sentence go down dramatically.

Unfortunately so did their verbal skills. If you look at them, Andrew is WAY out in front in that area. Other two are fine, but don't shine at all like Andrew does in that area. (they have their other strengths, no worries!!)

[soapfaerie]

Interesting to know that it does make a difference! I started doing it really early on because he's just always been so...alert. Even as a newborn, the nurses commented on it...he always seemed to be observing. So i started telling him what he was seeing, what we were doing.
We'll count drops of plant food in the water, then we'll water the plants and talk about each one.. and since i'm a dork, my 3 biggest plants have names haha. "Ok first let's go water Spencer the spider plant..oh look at all the baby plants growing! Now we'll go water Abraham the wandering jew. Look how his leaves are green on one side and purple on the other..." Blah blah blah. But he appears to soak it all in. Sometimes it's more detailed than other times. I'll pause to give him a chance to answer back, sometimes he does. Other times he takes over the conversation haha. ;)

[mid_night_glory]

I heard a thing about this on NPR, and was recalling the days of babbling to my kids when they were tiny. Makes total sense to me.
Also, I was thinking about you the other day and hoping things are well for you.