Best Way to Communicate with Your 6-Month-Old Baby

From the day your baby is born, he is communicating with you. Initially this is just by crying; later by smiling, too, and from six months old onwards he’ll use a whole range of signs and gestures. It will be many months yet before your baby can actually say his first words, but that isn’t going to stop him expressing himself!

It is also the case that your baby doesn’t need to know how to talk in order to understand what you say to him. In fact, a baby’s understanding of language naturally develops faster than his ability to use it.

Understanding first

Babies learn how to talk at such different rates that their receptive language – how well a baby understands what is said to them – is a much better sign of the progress they are really making.

You can see this in lots of different ways. First you may notice your child turn to you when he hears his name. Then by around nine months, for example, you’ll notice that he is beginning to recognize lots of words that name familiar people or objects, such as “beaker” or “teddy”. He’ll laugh in the right places when you sing certain songs, took for his beaker when you ask him where it is, and follow simple commands such as ‘kiss mummy”.

Some babies do say their first words before their first birthday (and these are usually recognizable only by their family!), but many children don’t utter any understandable words until they are around 13 months old. Some children are still making themselves understood with signs and gestures well into their second year. As long as your baby seems to understand what you are saying, the chances are his speech will develop normally.

Using signs and gestures

As your baby’s understanding of language is developing, so, too, is his ability to express himself with signs and gestures – another important stage in language development. He loves communicating with you, and is very creative in finding ways of letting you know what he wants. For example:

•   from around seven months he may open and shut his hand when he wants something, and shake his head or push you away if you are doing something he doesn’t like. Watch his face, too: his expressions will let you know if he’s cross, happy, or frightened.

•   from around nine months old he may start pointing at what he wants, wave goodbye to you, and lift his arms in the air to show he wants to be picked up.
•   from around 10 months he may be able to follow simple questions such as “Do you want a drink?” and respond by shaking or nodding his head.

Though these signs and gestures are a stop-gap until your baby learns how to talk, it’s important to try and decipher them and show that you understand. Seeing you respond correctly fills him with confidence, develops his trust in you, and encourages his desire to communicate.