Your baby is babbling with inflection now—it sounds like a real conversation, just in a language only they understand.
These activities encourage varied babbling patterns, build comprehension of simple words, and develop the gestural communication that bridges babbling and speech.
Crawling is coming! Place favorite toys just out of reach to motivate your baby to move. Celebrate every army crawl and scoot.
Container play is a hit now. Babies love putting things in, dumping them out, and doing it again. Simple cups and blocks are all you need.
Repetition is learning, not boredom. Your baby wants the same game 20 times because each round strengthens a neural pathway.
Fill a basket with safe textured objects and narrate what baby touches — smooth, bumpy, soft, crinkly — pairing sensory exploration with descriptive words.
Use soft rattles and your voice from different positions to encourage your baby to turn toward sounds — a foundational skill for language development.
Introduce simple signs for 'more,' 'all done,' and 'eat' during meals — giving your baby a way to communicate before words come along.
Snuggle up with a high-contrast board book and narrate the pictures using an animated voice — building your newborn's love of stories from day one.
Point to pictures in a sturdy board book and name them with enthusiasm — building your baby's vocabulary long before they can say the words themselves.
Play peek-a-boo with favorite toys, naming each one as it appears — combining the thrill of surprise with vocabulary building.