The dos and don'ts of baby talk

Life Kit: Parenting

NPR

Kids & Family

4.6 • 640 Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2026

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If you have a baby in your life, you may not find them the most intellectually stimulating conversation partner. But your baby is soaking up everything you say. On this episode, advice from early childhood experts on the importance of talking to babies from day 1 to 12 months old, and tips on what to say.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Life Kit from NPR.
0:05.1	Hey, Andy.
0:06.1	Hey, Mariel.
0:08.1	I was just talking to my nephew.
0:10.3	We FaceTime a few times a week.
0:13.4	He always grabs the phone and he does this thing where he communicates his glee by shaking his head like this.
0:18.7	Like, I'm so happy to see you.
0:21.1	Yeah.
0:21.7	I think that's our signal to each other.
0:23.7	Like, we're excited to see each other.
0:25.4	Because it's hard to know how to talk to a baby, really, before they're talking.
0:32.6	Right.
0:33.0	It's like, how do you have conversations?
0:35.4	How do you know if you're connecting in some way?
0:39.1	What it sounds like is something called serve and return.
0:42.3	And so it means when you're interacting with a baby, you're serving them some form of communication.
0:48.5	Hi, baby.
0:49.7	How are you?
0:50.8	And you're letting them return communication.
0:53.5	You're giving them space to coo at you or to
0:57.4	babble to basically tell you, I receive that thing, that communication back. And you know, they often
1:02.4	understand a lot more than we think. All right. Well, coming up on this episode of Life Kit,
	...

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