Motherhood is a very lovely feeling which comes with mixed emotions and situations. This is the time when your child becomes the priority of your life even if it means that you have to deprive yourself from the much needed rest and sleep along with timely feeding schedules that can actually drain you out. No matter how tired you may be, the one thing that you need to keep in mind is to ensure that you and your child should form the bond. Here is how you can successfully communicate with your newborn.
The importance of communication between the mother and the newborn
The first thing or person the child comes in direct contact with is when they are in the arms of the mother. Even before the child develops the ability to speak, he or she already shows different signs of communication with his or her mother. For new or first time mother, this can be really difficult as you would not be able to understand what your child is trying to say.
It is only a period of time before you can actually understand what your child wants. Even if you want your child to learn something, you would need to keep on repeating the same thing so that your child understands the sound. Babies can catch sound very easily and will reciprocate accordingly. Another reason why you should communicate with your child is to enhance as well as strengthen the bonding between you and your child. While this is developed ever since the child is in your womb, it can be made stronger by spending quality time and talking to your child. It also helps your baby to understand your voice.
Crying
A child will start communicating the very second they are out in this world; the first way of communication is by crying. Crying can indicate a variety of things – the first being that they are hungry, they may be experiencing some sort of discomfort, and they may also need a diaper change.
Laugh
Babies have different kinds of laughter to express what they feel. While the short laugh may be for amusement, they may have a longer laugh when they are tickled or even when they are enjoying themselves.
Facial expressions
Babies can be really good in their facial expressions, in fact, their face can tell you exactly what they really feel – be it a smile if they are happy to see you or even a frown or an angry look if they are upset. Just by the way they look at you will tell you what you really need to know.
Tips to talk to your child
Just like any relation, communication is the key to ensure that you and your child can express and understand each other. Here are 10 tips that can help you out:
- Whenever you go to do something for your child, let your child know about it. For example, if you are feeding your child, you can use sentences or words like – its feeding time, mom’s here to feed you, yummy in your tummy time, etc.
- Instead of using words like him, he, I, you can use a lot of proper nouns such as ma, mamma, papa, dada etc. This will help your child to learn a new word. Another way to teach your child to communicate is by getting them to hear the sounds of different things by showing it to them. You can start with easy words and slowly go ahead with a little difficult one depending on their age.
- Repeat easy words as much as possible during the day. Babies can understand sound, so it will be advisable to speak slowly and clearly.
- When talking to your child, ensure that your voice is soothing ad comforting. Another thing that you should keep in mind is smiling when you are talking to your child – this can make a huge difference.
- Hand gestures or signs are another perfect way to get your child to learn and understand things. Use normal gestures like the wave for hi or bye, etc.
- Another way to enhance your bond with your child is by singing to them. Children love music and when it is a soothing one, it is all the more welcomed. Sing lullabies for your child when you want to put him or her to sleep and even nursery rhymes along with hand actions or gestures.
- The goo-Goos and gaagaas or even the babaahs is the most common sounds that a child can understand. You can combine that with a few cute and funny facial expressions to help them learn better.
- Reading books with pictures on it is something that can help a lot. This should be done on a daily basis and you need to make sure that the books you choose have a lot of colorful pictures on it. Today you also get books which have the relevant sound associated to the picture; you can choose such books to help teach your child.
- For a mother, it is natural to communicate to your child, however you need to ensure that you are in front of your child, you should never show any kind of discomfort or negative emption. Children learn very fast and they can also get scared in case they see anything that is negative. For a child, a good and healthy environment is very important for them to learn the right things. This is why from day 1, you need to make sure that you keep the environment more positive as well as use the right kind of resources to teach your child various things.
- Communication is the key to any successful relation – and between a mother and child – it is the most essentials factors to make sure that your bond with your child only grows stronger day by day. You would need to be very patient while teaching your child to communicate, especially since we all know that a child has their own mind and have a small attention span.
