Your Baby's Babble: What Does It Mean?

When will my baby start to babble, and what does it mean?

We all love the sound of a baby babbling — there's something so infectious about it — and as a parent, it's so exciting to hear your baby produce the beginnings of what will become their first words. There’s a lot that goes on before babbling though, so read on to figure out what your baby is doing, and how to get them to the gorgeous stage of babbling!

On their journey to learning to talk, your baby will move through lots of different stages of ‘baby talk’. Each new sound they make, and sound pattern, is one step closer to talking to you and others in a way they can be clearly understood.

Although the early stages of communication development are ‘baby talk’, they are all definite attempts to communicate with you. It’s important to notice what our babies are doing to communicate with us, and help them make the next step in their communication development. 

Let’s take a look at the different sounds your baby will make in their first six months. Here they are in order of development:

• Crying (we all know what this is!) Your clever baby learns to adapt their cry to suit different needs.
• Cooing: this is the first vocal milestone your baby will reach. It's usually a long vowel sound (e.g. ‘ahh’ ‘oooo’) or a gurgle. These beautiful sounds usually start around 6-8 weeks. 
• Laughing: we all love those first baby laughs; they're infectious!
• Vocal play: your baby will start to experiment with the different sounds their mouth can make (e.g. blowing raspberries)
• Combining a consonant and vowel sound together to make one syllable (e.g. ‘gah’ ‘bah’) (often around 4-5 months)
• Babble!

So, what is baby babble?

Babble is a string of consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel syllables produced together (e.g. bababa, mamama). 

There are two types of babble:

1. Reduplicated babbling — the first type of babble to develop (around six months), this is when your baby produces a string of repeated syllables together, using the same consonant sound (e.g. bababa, mamama). 
2. Variegated babbling — the second type of babble to develop (around nine to ten months) is when your baby starts to combine different syllables together, using different consonants, e.g. ‘mamadaba’. 

Why is baby babble important?

Your baby is learning to sequence sounds together, and whilst it might seem like ‘baby talk’, babbling is a very important stage in children’s language development. 

Speech is a series of different sounds sequenced together in a complex way, and babble is your child’s way of practising these sounds and getting used to putting these sounds together in different ways, which will eventually become words!

As your baby continues to babble and develop this skill, their sounds will start to sound more and more like conversation. This is often called  jargon, and it has a rhythm and tone which sounds a lot like adult speech.

Is it babble or words?

As your baby learns to babble, you’ll start to hear them refine and shorten the string of syllables. This is when you might start to hear first ‘words’ like ‘mama’ ‘dada’ and ‘baba’. Well done, baby!

This can be considered a first word when your baby says it in context (e.g. they look at mama and say: "Mama", or call out for "mama:). It can sometimes take a while between playing around with the sounds, and understanding it can be used as a word to label someone/something.

How can I help my baby to babble?

 You are supporting your baby to reach this milestone from day 1 when you start communicating with them. The foundations are laid from the very beginning to teach them about sounds and how to use them to communicate with those around them.

 Want to know more about HOW to communicate with your baby from day 1 (including two sections on babbling with specific strategies for this skill), what to expect as they grow and how to support their development? Join the Walky Talky Baby membership!