Baby play: why it’s important for language development
Play is the main way that babies develop, learn and explore the world.
Playing with your baby creates many opportunities for your baby to develop language. And the more you play and talk together, the more words your baby hears. This improves your baby’s language skills, including their ability to understand language, communicate and learn early words. It also helps their brain develop.
When you spend time talking and playing together, it’s great for bonding with your baby and it helps to strengthen your relationship. A strong relationship with you is essential for development, because it gives your baby the confidence to keep exploring and learning.
What to expect from baby language
Babies learn new language skills over time and at different ages. But here’s what’s happening for most babies between 3 and 12 months.
At 3 months, your baby will most likely coo, smile and laugh. As your baby grows, they’ll begin to play with sounds and communicate with gestures like waving and pointing.
Between 4 and 6 months, your baby will probably start babbling. Your baby will make single-syllable sounds like ‘ba’ first, before repeating them – ‘ba ba ba’.
After babbling, your baby might sound like they’re telling you something, but their ‘speech’ won’t sound like recognisable words.
Between 10 and 11 months, your baby might speak their first word and know what it means.
Find out more about language development between 3 and 12 months.
Language development happens in the same order in most babies. Small differences are usually nothing to worry about. But if you’re wondering whether your baby’s language development is on track or you feel that something isn’t quite right, it’s good to get help early. Talk to your child and family health nurse or GP.
Play ideas to encourage language development
The more words children hear, the more words they can learn to say and understand.
Here are fun things to do together to encourage baby language development:
- Chat to your baby about the things you’re doing around the house, even if you think they’re boring. For example, ‘Daddy’s putting the clothes away’.
- Have face-to-face conversations with your baby during nappy changes and other daily care activities. You could try talking about what you’re doing, singing, and looking at your baby’s face as you change their nappy.
- Repeat your baby’s attempts at words when you’re not sure what your baby is trying to say. For example, if your baby says ‘ba ba’, you could say ‘ba ba’ back. This also encourages back-and-forth interactions.
- Repeat and build on your baby’s words when you know what your baby is trying to say. For example, when your baby says, ‘train’ and points at the toy train, you say, ‘Yes, it’s a big train’.
- Show interest in your baby’s babbling and talking by looking into your baby’s eyes, giving plenty of smiles, and getting down to their level – for example, by joining them on the floor.
- Respond to and talk about your baby’s interests. For example, if your baby starts playing with a toy train, you could say ‘Toot, toot’.
- Read and tell stories with your baby, share songs and nursery rhymes, and play peekaboo.
- Use gestures when you’re playing with your baby. For example, ‘Can you clap your hands? Let’s clap together’. Gestures help babies to understand words.
If you’re raising multilingual or bilingual children, it’s a good idea to speak your heritage language in your home. Learning more than one language has many benefits.