������̳

My first top tip for talking with your baby would be to talk to them from the first day they are born. So talk to them right from the off and make sure that they get used to you as a communicator. Make sure they know that you want to talk to them. Because talking to them is the thing that develops them throughout their life and you want them to know they can talk to you as their parent.

My second top tip for talking to your baby would be use intonation. Make your voice really interesting. And that could be silly voices, it could be rhyme, it could be using actions when you rhyme and what I'd really do is use gesture. Use it so that the child really engages with you when they're talking, so they look at you and go 'Oh I wanna talk to him or her because they are really interesting'.

My third top tip for talking to your baby would be to use turn-taking. Turn-taking can happen right from the early days of your baby being born. You can be talking to them and interpret things like gurgles or smiles as if they're part of the conversation. So if your baby does do a little bit of a funny noise when you're talking to them, you might interpret that as being them communicating something with you.

My fourth top tip for talking would be to follow your child's lead. So when you've got your baby and they're home and they're looking around their environment, it is really following your baby's gaze and seeing what they're looking at in your home. Making sure that, when your child looks at something, you're using language to tell them what that is gives them an awareness and they're going to learn more because you're talking about things that they're looking at. If you follow their lead with your talking and their play, they're more likely to develop those parts of the brain. That gives them the skills to use in conversation.