How your baby communicates

Baby broadcasting

Babies are not able to speak at birth and so communication is very basic and urgent and it starts with crying! Crying is a very powerful communication, so much so that a mum hearing her baby cry will feel a very strong instinct to go to her baby and attend to their needs. This is a fantastic survival instinct, but over time your baby’s communications will become multi-faceted and not just based on asking for help!

Baby receiving

Babies are also great watchers and listeners, their favourite sound is their parents’ voices and their favourite vision is their parents’ faces. This is also a crucial instinct that allows babies to learn to communicate and eventually use spoken language.

How your baby learns to communicate

Your baby will start the long process of learning how to communicate as soon as they can hear voices from the womb. This begins at around 20 weeks.

They’ll recognise and listen to your voice in particular but also those of other people who are around a lot.

So right from the day your baby is born, they will be familiar with your voice and with the idea of people talking to each other.

How can I help them communicate?

A great thing to do at the very start is copying games, such as sticking out your tongue. It’s so cute. Just sit with them and stick out your tongue and encourage them to do the same. It may take a while at first, but then they’ll get the hang of it. It’s the very earliest stage of communicating – without words.

The best thing you can do to help your baby learn to communicate is to communicate with them – a lot! It doesn’t always have to be words – it can be fun noises, songs, music, funny voices – whatever you feel like. It’s all part of your baby feeling they have your attention and that’s what they loves.

When you talk to them, remember to listen to them as well – always giving them time to respond. They won’t be responding in words at first – but they will almost certainly be doing their best to join in.

You can start talking to your baby before they are born. Talk to them and tell them things that are going on. See our article ‘When will my baby talk’? for more ideas.

Some mums find that if they’ve read a particular book (a simple rhyming book like Green Eggs And Ham by Dr Seuss, for instance) out loud to their bump, or played a particular piece of music, then their baby will respond really positively to this book or music after they are born. It feels so familiar and safe.

Hand and body gestures, baby signing and action songs

Babies can gesture before they can speak. Some parents will teach their baby to sign or gesture a few key words, like “more”, “milk” or “full.” This can really help babies who get a bit frustrated. However, you don’t need to learn a strict baby signing language, you can make up your own simple signs and just have fun with your baby. From about seven months they will start to respond and understand simple hand and body gestures such as “no,” “look”, etc.

Action songs are a great way of learning words through physical actions. It’s so much fun for your baby to sit on your lap while you’re singing and doing actions. It gives them a way to join in before they can talk and sing.

Learning words through movement is always a great way to learn, as babies learn through their senses and in a very physical (rather than linguistic) way.

The more you communicate, the more your baby’s brain will grow

During the first two years, your baby’s brain will be developing faster than it ever will again in their life.

Simply put, they will be laying down pathways (called synapses) between brain cells (neurons). These pathways will be laid down as they learn, and when the pathway is complete the learning will be remembered. It’s like they’re building a pathway through a field of wheat… the more time they tread the path, the stronger, faster and bigger the path will become. Babyhood and childhood are critical periods when the brain is flexible and capable of huge change and growth.

For example, you say a new word once, it will register but won’t be remembered. By saying it many times, the word will be laid down in your baby’s brain as a pathway between neurons. The same process goes for visual memories and sound memories.

If you expand the learning by not just saying the words, but singing them with actions as well, the pathway will become stronger, and the word learned more solidly. The more pathways you have into a memory – music, words, and even other senses like smell – the more solid that memory will be. In fact, smell is one of the most evocative senses for recalling memories.

The power of pointing!

When your baby begins to point between nine and 12 months they get their first opportunity to show other people what they find interesting and important. It’s a universal and powerful way of communicating. If someone points, people look to where they are pointing.

We are the only animals who point and have whites to our eyes too, and one theory of our unique eyes is that it allows other people to see what we are looking at. Babies don’t get this immediately but will soon look where you look and read your emotions. This is called ‘social referencing’.