When the baby starts to coo and smile
Towards the end of the first month of life, the child begins to make simple vowel sounds in response to some events. This is how speech begins to develop. The same letters, but in different intonations, can speak of both childish admiration and dissatisfaction. The volume of pronunciation for each intonation is also different. As a rule, joy is not accompanied by such a loud “ah” as protest.
The first smile can be noticed after the first month of life. Although the mother can observe an unconscious smile immediately after birth. The fact is that the muscles of children, especially in the first time after childbirth, involuntarily and sharply contract. A child, during a calm, deep sleep, may suddenly throw his arms up. Facial muscles are also subject to physiological work. Therefore, even in the maternity hospital, the mother can see a short-term smile of the newborn during his sleep.
Smile in a dream
Key milestones in language development before one year of age
Organs and muscles important from the point of view of speech development (lips, tongue, hearing) are usually developed in children from birth. However, in the first 4 weeks of life, newborns only cry. They exhibit and develop different types of crying.
Cries from hunger, pain or fatigue are usually different. The same letters pronounced in different intonations can speak of protest, discontent, and childish admiration. The pronunciation volume for each intonation is also different.
Booming and cooing in infants are precursors to speech development. This is an important stage in the baby’s speech development; the child experiments with the pronunciation of articulated sounds, but does not yet pronounce clear, recognizable words.
Language development in the first months of life
2 months
The second month of life brings a long-awaited smile. At about 1–2 months, the baby not only screams, but also “sings” - makes the sounds “aaa-guu”, “a-gyy”, “g-yy” and others. The child gurgles and gurgles against a background of positive emotions, physical activity, and is in high spirits. The humming and the accompanying “revival complex” are interconnected. The child can also spontaneously and continuously “chat” in a calm state, lying in his crib.
A baby at the age of 2–3 months can already recognize his mother’s behavior and associate his humming with it. Understanding that the mother enjoys the sound she makes is an incentive to continue communicating with others. Therefore, many children, in response to speech addressed to them, begin to babble more intensely.
3 months
The development of a baby in the third month of life is not only about the pronunciation of sounds. Hearing, smell, and touch improve. Up to 3 months, humming and cooing have almost no connection with the baby's hearing. Gradually, the child learns to listen to his own sounds.
The area of the brain responsible for eye-hand coordination develops especially quickly. In the third month of life, the muscles of the head and neck become stronger. The baby turns his head in the direction of the sound and distinguishes monotonous noises (vacuum cleaner, car). Body movements become more controlled.
Important! The articulatory apparatus is developing. Children are preparing to pronounce the first syllables and master the intonations of speech characteristic of their native language.
4 - 5 months
Many parents notice that the child reacts more and more noticeably to communication and play with them. The baby uses a smile depending on the mood of adults, recognizes the faces of familiar people, and distinguishes them from strangers.
In the fourth month of life, touch and tactile sensations encourage children to communicate. Massages and various hygiene procedures help you feel your body. At these moments, you can find out what kind of touch babies like. It is also important to look at the child with a smile. If someone addresses him kindly, he smiles and hums in response.
6 months
Although the time when the first word will be spoken is still ahead, you need to talk to the child and read to him. You should use everyday situations to work on your child’s future vocabulary. For example, name toys, products, purchased children's things. You can ask your baby questions and answer them yourself, and make a shopping list for dad.
If the family is bilingual, then you can speak with the child in both languages. However, there is an assumption that multilingualism in the family leads to delayed speech development in children.
7-8 months
The child changes the volume, delivery and speed of communication. At this age, the humming stage improves, the baby begins to make reduplicated (doubled) sounds, and an alternation of vowels and consonants occurs, which are more often found in the parent language. It can be “Ma-ma-ma”, “Pa-pa”, “Ba-ba-ba”.
At 7 months, the ability to control the opening and closing of the vocal tract appears. The onset of speech development associated with the children's environment is characterized by the constant repetition of certain syllables. Even deaf children can make a wide variety of sounds in the first six months of life. These attempts are then frustrated by a lack of auditory and language experience.
In the first six months, babies make different sounds as they adapt to the language environment. They use a rhythm and tone of speech that is familiar to him from his environment. Therefore, the first “statements” may seem meaningful, but they are not.
9-10 months
Infants do not imitate speech sounds, but speech-like sounds. The cooing is starting to sound more and more like a conversation. The structure of syllables pronounced by a child is closely related to the sounds of his native language.
11 months
Children try to imitate some sounds pronounced by adults, imitate the rhythms, inflections, and tones of adult speech.
Unconscious cooing
How to Wake a Newborn to Feed
If the child has reached the age of one month, but the parents have not yet heard the long-awaited “aha”, there is no need to worry. The baby pronounces the first sounds unconsciously; most often, emotions become a provocateur for the sound. If mom is very busy, dad is always at work, there is no time to communicate with the child for a long time, he is left to his own devices, then rare communication with adults will delay the moment of the first sounds.
Additional Information. Vivid positive emotions will give impetus to unconscious hooting. At one month of age, the most vivid emotion for a child is mom and dad. Tactile communication and cheerful conversation will help your baby begin to babble.
Medical statistics helped to come to the conclusion that the very first unconscious cooing of children of different nations is practically no different from each other. The first sounds of babies in different parts of the planet are similar to one another and do not have any special pronunciation specifics. Closer to three or four months of life, the child begins to recognize adult syllables and, in attempts to talk with his parents, uses imitation, which is why, at an older age, the humming takes on an ethnic connotation.
Children of different nations
How is cooing different from humming?
Daily routine of a 5 month old baby
The roar of a child, no matter how many months it appears, undoubtedly pleases all family members. Based on the very name of the process of pronouncing sounds, you can understand how one differs from the other. When a child begins to coo, adults hear mainly vowel sounds. The most common of them are “a”, “y”, “and”. The child begins to pronounce them separately. Later, the baby will come up with a sequence of vowels similar to the well-known children's “agu.” He can start cooing as early as one month of age. This is especially common in children who are not deprived of communication with relatives.
Humming is a more complex set of sounds that smoothly develops into babbling. It already contains more consonant sounds, which, when combined with vowels, make speech richer and more interesting. Among the new letters, the most common are “b”, “g”, “c”, “d”. Pediatricians do not particularly monitor the ability to coo, but they will definitely ask about how often a child roars at the next appointment at the age of 2 months. This is the time when a properly developing baby demonstrates the start of mastering the speech apparatus.
Baby at the pediatrician's appointment
The appearance of consonant sounds in a child’s speech pleases him. Children are often delighted to realize that they are producing syllables that are similar to adult speech. Many kids entertain themselves in this way, repeating the same syllable they like several times, and even laugh at the same time.
Useful video about speech development in a child
List of sources:
- Sapozhnikov Ya. M., Cherkasova E. L., Minasyan V. S., Mkhitaryan A. S. Speech disorders in children. Pediatrics. Journal named after G. N. Speransky. 2013; 92(4):82–87.
- Asmolova G. A., Zavadenko A. N., Zavadenko N. N., Kozlova E. V., Medvedev M. I., Rogatkin S. O., Volodin N. N., Shklovsky V. M. Early diagnosis of disorders speech development. Features of speech development in children with consequences of perinatal pathology of the nervous system. Guidelines. M.: Union of Pediatricians of Russia, Russian Association of Perinatal Medicine Specialists. 2014. 76 p.
- Arkhipova E.F. Speech therapy work with young children. M., 2007.
- Gromova O.E. Methodology for forming the initial children's vocabulary. M., 2005.
Author
Oksana Belokur
Pediatrician
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What does a newborn react to with a smile?
A child tries to sit up at 4 months - is it possible?
The first conscious smile may appear in a child in the first 5-6 weeks of life. She will certainly be a response to the communication of a close relative with him; most often the baby gives his first smile to his mother. After all, she is the one who spends the most time with him. Lying on his back, the child examines everything that comes into his field of vision.
First smile
Young parents should keep in mind that children in the first months of life are very nearsighted; their organ of vision is just beginning to develop. Most often, he can get a good look at his mother’s face. The child knows him better than anyone, and when she talks to him or plays with faces, the first smile appears, indicating that the baby receives positive emotions from such communication. The whole family, when their newborn begins to smile and walk, understands that development is in accordance with average statistical standards.
Methods for encouraging a child to “talk”
If a child has already begun to gurgle, his speech cannot be ignored. In addition to his emotional admiration, it is important for the baby to demonstrate his answers, thereby creating the first dialogues. When newborns begin to coo, they need to respond with similar syllables. Hearing his sound in response from his mother, he will be very happy, realizing his first sound contact.
Important! If adults repeat after the baby, he will begin to talk more actively, pronounce more clearly and call for conversation louder.
How to teach a child to say aha
Children who do not have serious congenital developmental anomalies say their first “aha” themselves; there is no need to teach them this. Medical research claims that those children with whom adults communicate a lot begin to coo earlier than others. The leisurely, clear speech of adults encourages the child to imitate. In this connection, in addition to regular screaming, calm, meaningful sounds appear.
Foot massage
To stimulate the development of speech skills, pediatricians, including E.O. Komarovsky, recommend massaging the feet and palms, thereby activating large areas of nerve endings:
- Place the thumb of your hand in the baby's palm, allowing him to grab onto it.
- Feel the joints connecting the fingers to the hand and gently knead them in a circular motion.
- Knead each finger with rubbing movements from the base to the nail. For a more comfortable procedure, you can use baby cream. Apply a small amount of it to your fingers, increasing their glide, and then carefully feel each child’s finger, as if rubbing the cream.
- Lubricate your feet with baby cream. Perform circular rotations: from the heel to the pads under the toes.
- If you lightly press on the area of the pads, at the base of the toes, the baby will reflexively squeeze the toes.
- It is also important to massage each finger, paying special attention to the joints.
Attention! Regular massage will not only ease and bring closer the moment when the child begins to gurgle and coo, but also cope with muscle hypertonicity, if present.
When talking to a child, it is important to adhere to the basic rule - do not pronounce words too quickly. In order for speech to develop gradually in the future, without jumps and hesitations, parents should choose an average rate of pronunciation in the family. Sentences should be short but concise. This will make it easier for the baby to remember the meaning of what was said. Each action must be accompanied by the same phrases describing the event. Over time, the child will learn the meaning of words and respond to adult speech.
If the baby doesn't gurgle
The main question is how to teach a child to coo if he has not started doing it on his own. In medical practice, there are sufficient cases when a child, even three months old, has not yet begun to walk. The problem does not always lie in physiological developmental abnormalities. The more often adults communicate with the baby, the faster he will try to answer. Mom's songs are very useful. Humming is important not only before bed. If a child is upset and crying not because he is hungry or hot, but because he wanted a hug, even when they went out for a walk with him, it is better to calm him down not with rocking, but with singing.
Mom sings to baby
The melodic intonation of the mother, accompanied by stroking the back, calms the baby much better than the shaking movements that parents are so drawn to. At the same time, the quieter the song, the more diligently the child will listen to it, forgetting about the whims. The mother's song will soon become recognizable to the baby, and he will try to reproduce it on his own.
Attention! The development of a child’s speech directly depends on the frequency of communication with him by his older relatives. In order to begin to pronounce sounds, the child must see how others do it.
It doesn’t matter what exactly his mother will tell him. The meaning of what was said at this stage of development does not matter. The main thing is intonation and articulation. You can write out loud, looking at the baby, a shopping list that will later be handed over to dad. You can “consult” with a child at this age by asking him questions and answering them yourself. Only the live daily speech of loved ones can push the baby to talk. A child should see how adults speak. The main ability of children is imitation. If the baby often sees how his relatives pronounce syllables and how their lips move, he will quickly begin to make attempts to repeat.
If a child does not try to make a sound for several months, the local pediatrician should be told about this. The doctor, knowing the characteristics of the child’s development, will be able to conclude whether additional examination by a neurologist is needed, or whether the parents simply need to devote more time to the baby.
Important! A constantly playing TV in the room irritates the child’s nervous system, while he is not able to concentrate on his mother’s communication. In order for a child to successfully develop his speech, it is necessary to protect him as much as possible from information garbage coming from a loud and bright screen.
Even the first conscious smile can be seen by deliberately smiling widely at the child. The more you exaggerate it, the sooner the baby will try to repeat it. Throughout the development of speech and other skills, the child will look to family members as role models. Therefore, it is important to remember that every day the family creates an individual. Not only prohibitions and rules need to explain in the future what is good and what is bad. Personal example is the best motivator in moving towards a goal.
What can I do to make my child start crying faster?
Many parents ask the question, how to teach a child to coo? When the baby begins to coo, parents can speed up this process - they should constantly talk to the baby, communicate, and not just care for it. A child, even a newborn, must be told fairy tales, sing songs, rhymes and nursery rhymes, paying special attention to carefully pronouncing sounds. A little patience - and the baby will begin to repeat the sounds he hears and coo. How else can you help your child master the basics of speech skills?
- A huge role is given to the emotional component of communication between parents and newborn. It is necessary to communicate with the child in a calm, measured tone. Under no circumstances should you scare the baby. It is necessary to maintain a calm environment in the house.
- Development of fine and gross motor skills of the hands - the child can touch with his hands a variety of objects that differ in shape, texture and other characteristics.
- Parents need to actively gesture during a conversation, play finger games - for example, the well-known “okay” or “magpie-crow”.
- When talking with a child, parents should not lisp and distort sounds and words - children should learn correct pronunciation.
As soon as the newborn begins to speak his first sounds, mom and dad can play “repeat” with him. To do this, parents repeat all the sounds uttered by their children, gradually adding new, simple sounds or sound combinations to them - after all, at what months children begin to coo depends on the parents.
An important condition is a favorable environment. A happy, dry and well-fed newborn begins to coo and coo much earlier than a baby in a stressful situation.
