My cousin, 10 years younger than me, just had a baby! Our family could not be more thrilled to have another baby to gush over and spoil. It got me thinking about her first words and sounds that will begin to occur in the next few months. 

Babies are fascinated by their parents, grandparents, caregivers. You feel like a champion when you are the one that gets them to smile or giggle! As they watch you, they are taking in everything you are doing. They are watching your mouth, eyebrows, facial expressions and even beginning to make sense of social pragmatic language. 

Since they’re watching your face and your mouth as you talk to them, exaggerating sounds will help show the baby how to talk. Sounds that are made with your lips, like “m,” “p,” and “b” are easy for babies to see.  Teaching words that have “visual sounds” are often the first words that babies says. 

Even more important is teaching verbs to babies, not just nouns. Using verbs in your daily chatter will help give function and meaning to the word, which makes learning more salient. More simply, hearing what an object does helps a baby to learn what it is. 

Some of our favorite 10 words to teach a baby are words that have function and also words that are visual (or have sounds that you can see). 

Top 10 Words to Teach Baby

• Mama/Dada
• Baby
• More
• All-done
• Up
• Open
• Hello/Bye Bye
• Uh-oh
• Eat
• Bath