As early as five months of age, babies start flexing their language muscles. Their adorable jibber jabber is almost incomprehensible, but will develop into fevered debates over curfews and car keys in what feels like no time!

By the time your child is twelve to sixteen months old, they’ll have a few words under his or her belt - somewhere around seven to twenty - and most of the world will rely on you as translator. As your baby learns to use words to ask for what they want or need, they will also use physical language to help express their thoughts.

As your baby works at communicating with you verbally, they might get frustrated at times. Be patient. A good way to diffuse these feelings is to kneel down to their level, make eye contact, and patiently try to decipher their speech and gestures.

A huge cognitive milestone usually takes place around 18 months, where children absorb and attempt to repeat a lot of new words at once. This period is really crucial and exciting!

Take time out to encourage your soon-to-be smooth talker by following some of these suggestions:

Read to your baby each and every day, many times a day if possible. They will just love the one-on-one time with you.  Not only will you introduce them to many new words, their imaginations will eventually begin to spark as well.

Talk to them and talk to them a lot. Research shows that babies who are engaged in a lot of conversation with their parents develop better vocabularies and higher IQs. Mind you, you don’t have to read Ulysses aloud to aid in their cognitive development. Simple, easy to follow conversation will do the trick, like pointing out and naming various foods aloud while shopping, or naming all the articles of clothing while you fold laundry. Try not to indulge in too much goo-goo ga-ga on your end. Your child will develop better diction if they don’t think the real word for “bottle” is “boh-boh.”

Encourage conversation by listening to what your child is trying to say in earnest. If you readily respond to their attempts at conversation - even if it’s incomprehensible - they will be more encouraged to talk and develop confidence in their language skills.