Sound Discrimination: By around one month old, a baby can distinguish your voice. When you talk to them, they feel comforted, soothed, and delighted. As they respond to you with smiles and cooing sounds, they see the radiance on your face, realizing that conversation is a two-way process. These early dialogues teach them many subtle rules of communication, such as turn-taking, intonation, imitation, rhythm, and the pace of language interaction.
Emitting Repetitive Vowels:
Around two months old, babies may start making cooing sounds and repeating some vowels (such as "aaa" or "ooo"). By the time they're 3-5 months old, you can mimic their baby talk while adding simple words and sentences during your "conversations" with them.
During this period, it's easy to develop a habit of using baby talk, but you should consciously incorporate more adult language into your communication and gradually phase out baby talk. You should also start reading to your child from infancy, even if you feel they don't understand.
Babbling:
By around four months old, babies will often babble for extended periods, producing some strange new sounds (like "mmm" or "baba") for their own amusement. They'll also be very sensitive to your tone of voice and the emphasis on certain words or sentences. As you spend day after day together, they'll learn to interpret from your voice when it's time to feed them, change their diapers, take them for a walk, or put them to sleep.
The way you speak to them reflects your mood and personality. If you speak to them with joy or tenderness, they may smile or make cooing sounds in response; if you yell at them or get angry, they may become alarmed or even cry.
Language Development Milestones for 1-3 Month-Old Babies:
Beginning of babbling.
Starting to mimic some sounds.