Baby Talk.

There is always something that our children do that manages to push all of our buttons at the same time. As mothers and fathers, I think this is something to which we can all relate.

Recently, in our house, it’s been baby talk.

In hindsight now, I can see that Abbey’s new and incredibly annoying adherence to using “baby” words for things actually makes a lot of sense, and with the helpful discussion that’s been happening on my facebook page today, I can now see a light at the end of the tunnel, and I have a more concrete plan on how to deal with this parenting challenge in a healthy way.

But for the past two weeks, I have been waking up every morning hoping that the first words out of my 4.5 year old daughter’s mouth will sound like her, and not like a baby version of her. The baby talk affectation has been driving my husband and myself crazy since the day it started a couple of weeks ago.

Abbey has been reaching some very significant milestones lately. She’s been writing her letters so very clearly, showing incredible creativity, making great strides in emotional maturation, and having fewer tantrums than she used to. We’ve been able to talk through problems instead of scream and wail about them, she’s been working out problems and disagreements with friends like a pro. Her love for dress up and pretend play is adorable, and I’ve really been enjoying watching her include her brother in her play as well.

So, you can understand how it was a very unwelcome surprise when she started replacing “May I have some more water please?” with “Mo wawa! Mo wawa!” and she started slurring her words together and skipping prepositions and conjunctions, replacing her beautiful big girl voice with a whiney baby version of Abbey.

So, What’s the Solution?

These are the suggestions that I’ve gotten from my wonderful followers and friends on facebook via the bog’s fb page:

• Ignore the baby talk
• Explain that I can’t understand the baby talk
• Not over-emphasizing Joseph’s (22 months) new words and phrases while Abbey is around (so that she won’t try to talk like him for attention)
• Wait it out – it will stop in a few weeks, maximum.
• Play “baby” with her when she uses baby talk (i.e. pick her up and hold her like a baby, coo at her and use baby talk to her, making it a silly tickling, cuddling game) to keep the reaction positive and try not to yell at her about it.

If you’d like to join the conversation and offer up any encouragement or advice, please, any and all conversation and ideas are welcome!

The baby talk really pushes my buttons and makes me feel that hardly controllable annoyance and anger that is not-so-attachment-parenting friendly! So I want to help it end. . . soon. And get our house back to a good, peaceful vibe asap!