When you talk to your baby, you begin to build a language-mediated bond that lasts throughout life. If that link is mediated by affection, this will transcend time as well.

Communication is giving and receiving, so whenever your baby communicates with you through babbling, gestures, syllables, words or phrases, you must also respond, so you will give meaning to that communication and your baby will begin to understand the role of speaking and responding.

Your baby depends on your responding to their needs to build trust in their adult caregivers (mom, dad or other people), and strengthen the affective bond through communication.

How does your baby communicate in the first trimester?

Gaze fixation: Does your baby follow you with his gaze? When we face each other, and move a little (not much) the baby will follow us with his eyes (not necessarily with his head)

Hearing check: Does your baby hear? We can see it in their startle responses to sudden and/or loud sounds. For example: the door that closes very hard, or an object that falls to the ground.

Responses to the presence and voice of their caregivers: We will observe that the voices and presence of nearby people calm them down and/or excite them.

Appearance of gurgling (mostly guttural sounds): When we hear these sounds, caregivers should celebrate them and "talk" back to them, for example: What are you telling me? Really?.

Different types of cries for different situations: As communication is a give and take, and crying is the primary resource in the first 3 months, it is important that adults respond to crying.

In this way we are telling the baby that we are listening to him!

The answer varies depending on the type of crying that we are already recognizing over time. Responding does not necessarily mean that we can do everything they want at a given time. For example: playing for a long time with them in the early hours of the morning, but it does mean that we must give an answer and make them notice that we respond according to their needs.

How does your baby communicate in the second trimester?

The first trimester's Visual and Auditory Contact evolved into other characteristics: When we caregivers move, not only does it move its eyes looking for us, but also its head. In the auditory, we already see an active search for the source that produces a sound (caretaker's voice, rattle). This will happen even though the sound is not in your line of sight.

Greater ability to discriminate sounds of language: This is why it is important for adults to talk and play with changes in intonation in our voice.

New sounds appear: They repeat more sounds that resemble syllables (pa, ma, ba, be). These sounds are repeated at this stage about 2-3 times, for example: mamama, and they are called babble.

Laughter Appears: Even Laughter

There are sounds of pleasure and disgust : There is not only crying, but also other sounds with different tonalities and shapes.

How does your baby communicate in the third trimester?

The use of the parent language (that of the parents) is very important. This has emotional-affective information, and content as well. This period is a critical period of language development . Aspects of phonology (the sounds of language) are consolidated.

The "bank of sounds" typical of the mother tongue begins to consolidate: This happens around 8 months, it is recommended that caregivers talk a lot with babies, play with sounds such as onomatopoeias (the sounds of animals), tell stories in short sentences, read books with lots of pictures and change the voices according to different characters.

Proto-dialogue appears: It is a fundamental part of conversational skills. Your baby plays with the idea of ​​taking turns. The initiative, the wait, the response. Not only verbally.

One of these non-verbal manifestations is when they throw toys waiting for us to pick them up and pass them to them. This is how they learn turns in communication. It is not necessary to stay forever in the same dynamic. We can change toys, or even set a time limit for this game. But it's important that we play these turn-based games.

Other syllables appear: Different from the initials and the game combining syllables that will later evolve into words.

How does your baby communicate in the room trimester?

It is very important that you have conversations with your baby as narratives of the environment. This way he will begin to identify some objects and associate them with his name when he hears them, as well as to understand simple instructions that are presented to him.

At this stage, he knows his environment and the people in it better, and he communicates with more people because the environment also expands.

The word begins to appear: It is the evolution of the exploration of sounds and play with syllables. Its pronunciation is not necessarily exact, but it is approximate.

Understands and can follow some simple instructions: It is important not to do this in isolation but within a complete context that helps you understand the instruction, it is important that we also carry out actions as a model to follow.

We notice that they understand words, even if they are not linked to an action: They get excited when we say that the grandparents or someone close has arrived, or if we talk about their favorite toy or pet.

Do you already know The Music of Tool-be?