How to Raise a Chatty Baby

I'm going to revert back to my Speech Pathologist days for this post, since these are the skills I still love using, with my own babes.

When your baby coos, you have the perfect opportunity to teach them how to carry on a conversation. When baby says "nnn-guh", which is one of her first words, you repeat it. Just once, then wait. She'll inevitably say it again. Then you can repeat it again. That's practicing conversational turn-taking.

Then when your baby becomes a toddler and starts using a couple words, you teach her how to stretch those words into sentences, like this:

She says "Ducky!"

You say: "Ducky! Yellow ducky!" (Or big ducky, or loud ducky, or whatever. You just add one word to it.)

You keep doing this, adding a word or two or three to what she says. And this is key:

You ALWAYS repeat what she says correctly.

Yes, I know it's adorable that she calls her blankey "panky", but you're her model, so you have to say it correctly.

She says "Tup, tup!"

You say "You want your cup? Here's your cup! Here's your pink cup."

Try it. You'll have a verbose toddler before you know it.