Does your baby keep mouthing their toys? Don鈥檛 worry, most babies do! It鈥檚 a bit gross, but as long as the toys are too big to get in their mouths, it actually helps them learn their first words!
Babies have very sensitive mouths, and using their mouths to explore toys is a great way for them to learn. After all, when you learn the word for an object, you might as well learn as much as you can about it ,including its touch, smell and鈥aste!聽 And putting toys in their mouths also helps them learn how to make new sounds.
When scientists recorded babies playing with toys and putting them in their mouths, they found the babies made more noises and more different sounds than when they didn鈥檛 have a toy. They were more likely to make 鈥榢uh鈥,鈥榙uh鈥 and 鈥榖uh鈥 sounds in fact.
This seems to show that putting toys in their mouths helps babies explore new ways of using their mouths to make sound - the sounds of words they鈥榣l eventually learn! So, it might get gungy sometimes, but let your baby explore toys, even with their mouth. As long as they鈥檙e nice and safe, it might help them to make those vital 鈥榢uh鈥, 鈥榙uh鈥 and 鈥榖uh鈥 sounds. It鈥檚 not just your little one playing around and making a mess, they鈥檙e actually learning the building blocks of language.
Toys play an important part of a babies language development.
Does your baby keep mouthing their toys? It might seem a bit odd, but it's actually helping them to learn their first words!
Image caption, Babies have very sensitive mouths, and using their mouths to explore toys is a great way for them to learn
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