baby talk

There are 2 kinds of baby talk.  The bad kind and the good kind.  I'm all in favor of the good kind and the bad kind makes my stomach turn over.

Bad baby talk - when you talk to a baby/child in a sickly sweet voice and use non-english words and stupify the sentence into bad broken English. AHHH.  it's sickening to listen to.  Some person (on the TTC) of course started to talk to Pumpkin like that and she gave me a funny look and then asked the lady why she was talking funny.  I nearly died laughing!  There is a mother of a 2 year old that I look after that talked to her child in this kind of baby talk and I want to bang my head on the wall.  The result? that's how he talks.

Good baby talk - repeating sounds that the baby is making.  This encourages them and lets them know that they are making good sounds.  I watch a 1 year old that I have been caring for since she was 3 months old.  She's really started to use language lately.  If she said "ah-baa-baa"  I will repeat it just how she said it.  This causes her to beam from ear to ear and giggle and then she will say another sound in her vocabulary.  Last week she pointed to Pumpkin and tried to say her name - which is three syllables!  "ah-baa-dee" was she the baby said, but that's pretty good for a 1 year old.  Pumpkin turned around the look on the baby's face was priceless.

I talk to children and babies in the same tones and speech patterns that I talk to adults in.  I my simplify my language so they can understand what I'm saying, but unless you talk properly to your child, how are they to learn proper speech patterns and vocabulary?  they can't unless they are taught.