Baby talk is the coos, babbling, facial expressions, and other ways your baby communicates before they start speaking real lagugage.
- At 3 months, your baby listens to your voice, watches your face as you talk, and turns toward other voices, sounds, and music. By the end of 3 months, babies start "cooing” happily.
- At 6 months, your baby may babble with sounds. The might say "ba-ba" or "da-da." By age 6-7 months, your baby will react to their name, recognize their native language, and change the tone of their voice to let you know if they're happy or upset.
- At 9 months, babies can understand a few basic words like "no" and "bye-bye."
- At 12-18 months, most toddlers can say few simple words like "mama" and "dada." They also can understand short commands like, “put that down."
- At 18 months, kids know several simple words and can point to people or things you name. They repeat words or sounds they hear you say.
- By age 2, toddlers string 2 to 4 words together into short phrases, like “Mommy bye-bye." They start picking up abstract words like “mine.”
- By age 3, a child’s vocabulary expands quickly. They understand symbolic and spatial concepts like “now," "sad," and "in."