How to Communicate Effectively With Your Child Before They Turn Two?

Nowadays, most kids have working parents. They don’t have time to communicate with their children. Later, when the child is about the age of 2, parents slowly realize, “Oh! My child is not communicating their own needs.”

Even though you are a working parent, ensure to spend time with your child and strengthen your communication with them. You can communicate with your child while you feed, bathe, or dress them up. Another best time to communicate is before your kid goes to sleep. You can narrate simple stories to them with a lot of intonation, stress, and expressions. This will help them identify new words while they learn to understand emotions and express them well.

How early can you start communicating with your child?

You can start from day 1; however, initially, the newborn will be sleeping for longer times, and you won’t find them much active. As they grow up, they become active and start playing for a few additional hours. Also, you might notice your little one trying to strike a communication through eye contact or by simply staring at your face. As parents, you should effectively use this time for communication. This will encourage the little ones to communicate back with you. You can start with a simple cooing. Also, some people use the expression ‘ng’ for milk whenever the child needs milk or after they drink milk. This expression can be repeatedly conveyed to the infant until they start associating the representing expression with milk.

Another way of building rapport and communication with your little one is by imitating their actions and vocal responses. This can become a fun game for the kid and help in strengthening your bond with them. When your baby turns around five months, you can repeat words and sounds like papa, baba, mama, etc., at their playtime. This will help them learn new words and take them to the next level of expression rather than only cooing and vocalizing. Ensure to have good eye contact with them so that they can enjoy your enthusiastic communication as they start imitating the sounds you make. Gradually, you can introduce them to the name of different objects to help them start identifying objects around with their respective names. Later, you can make this more interesting for them as you ask them to look at an object such as a car or a ‘baubau.’ They will turn their eyes toward the respective object rather than pointing with fingers. This indicates that the baby can recognize and comprehend the objects gradually. The training can be started when your baby is around seven months.

When the little one turns around one year, you have to help them utter distinct words. This is how my kid and most kids start communicating, and by the time they reach around 1.9 months, they build a range of vocabulary and can narrate simple kids’ stories. Communication builds your child’s comprehension and expression skills. It also indirectly helps in strengthening your child’s emotional, cognitive, and social skills. Hence, every parent should start communicating from day one since the child is born.

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