My little baby is definitely now a toddler. Only on Sunday did he firmly tell me ‘no more!” when I was trying to get him to have some more cottage pie. And it got me thinking, when do babies start to talk? I clearly remember Tayo’s first word. In fact, it was two words. ‘eyo Sasha’. Yep, the first time he formed actual words, he was saying hello to the dog. Interestingly, Leo’s first word was ‘wawa’… You guessed it. Sasha. She’s pretty popular in our house.

Babies start ‘talking’ much sooner than when they say their first word. Their first form of communication is crying and you’ll soon notice that they start making little comforting sounds when they sleep. We tend to find that these little noises happen when they move in their sleep so everything is connected and then you might notice the moment that those two things disconnect and those little noises become more prevalent when they’re awake. The cooing phase. One of the most gorgeous sounds you’ll ever hear… Until you hear their laugh and then them tell you that they love you of course.

At around six months you might notice that the sounds become longer and that they might put a couple of sounds together and they start to babble. This is around the time that you might start to hear dada and baba and hopefully mama. You’ll find at around 12 months they might sit there and just babble to themselves. Which is ridiculously adorable.

Between 11 and 15 months or so when your baby starts to walk they might not talk as much. They can’t quite manage to walk and talk at the same time yet. So much is happening around this time. Finding their feet, a whole new world to explore and their vocabulary is really starting to expand as well. They will start to make up their own words, experimenting with the different sounds their mouths can make. Tayo recently started to make a clicking sound with his tongue and the roof of his mouth. He is particularly proud of this new noise. And then the fun really starts. They actually try to talk to you, have a conversation like their babble makes perfect sense.

Tayo will sit and ‘read’ a book now. He will open it up on his lap and point at the pictures and make up some jargon. He is 17 months and he can tell me he wants milk – ‘gil’, he wants picking up – ‘up’, that he wants Leo – ‘eeeeeooowwwww’, that he’s finished his food – ‘all gone’, that he wants water – ‘wahwa’ and now clearly, that he doesn’t want anymore!

I’m excited for the next couple of months and seeing how his speech develops. I’m excited for babble to turn into more formed words. I got reminded of a video of Leo last week when he was 20 months and he was trying to count from 1 to 10. It was fascinating to see he had the general premise of what he was trying to do but he wasn’t quite able to make the right sounds. Before I know it Tayo and I will be having full on conversations so I’m going to fully enjoy what is one of the last things that still makes him by baby. All the babble.

What were your little ones first words? Are you in the babbling stage like me? And remember, everything Ive said here isn’t gospel. Every baby is different and develops at different stages and when it comes to speech it seems the stages are broad. You can see more about what to expect from the pin below and if ever you’re worried or concerned you can always speak to your Health Visitor.

{PIN THE EXPECTATIONS}


when do babies start to talk