babble baby

According to our weekly Wednesday email from BabyCenter.com, at 5 months and 4 weeks:

Your baby the babbler

Your baby now sees and hears the world almost as well as you do. Her communication skills are expanding rapidly, too, as evidenced by her squeals, bubbling sounds, and operatic octave changes. Her sounds can demonstrate her attitude or response to objects — such as happiness, eagerness, or even satisfaction — with a problem well solved.

At this age, about half of babies babble, repeating one syllable — such as "ba," "ma," "ga," or other consonant-vowel combinations — over and over. A few will even add another syllable or two, making their sounds more complex.

You can encourage your baby by babbling right back at her and by making a game of it ("The sheep says, 'baaa,'" or "The goat says, 'maaa'"). Or, when you hear a syllable you can't identify, just respond enthusiastically with, "Yes, that is a car! See how shiny the red paint is?" Your baby will appreciate your encouraging her by keeping the conversation going.

She'll also appreciate it if you listen as if you understand everything she says and find it extremely interesting. Try simulating a conversation: You listen while she talks, then ask a question and wait for a response!

For the first couple of months, Benjamin, as often as not, was in the lower 50% for developing particular skills mentioned on BabyCenter.com. We tried not to worry about it. For the past few months, Benjamin seems to be a month or two ahead of schedule — suddenly doing everything early.

So when we read that half of 5-month-and-4-week-old babies are babbling, it concerned us in that we're-going-to-deny-this-concerns-us sort of way.

Nathalie pointed out that he babbles constantly according to our definition: lots of meaningless phonemes strung together at various volumes and pitches. But not according to the BabyCenter definition: "consonant-vowel combinations — over and over".

That was yesterday.

Tonight, out of nowhere, Benjamin started BabyCenter-babbling.

Mostly he said "ma ma ma" and "ba ba ba" but at one point he said "die die da da!" — which I've decided not to take as an Oedipal outburst.

Here's his monologue on the topic of his mother:


(or download)

- papa (aka Die-Die Dada)