agonyaunt | (no subject)

Dear Amy: I'm a new parent of a five-month-old baby.

My partner and I love our baby, but we have different approaches and I'm concerned that my partner’s parenting approach won't be good for our baby in the long term.

We're both introverts, so making "conversation" to promote language development doesn't come easily to either of us, but I try as much as possible to talk with baby, narrate what I'm doing, sing, etc.

My partner mostly makes nonsense sounds or says "hi" to the baby.

Soon I'll be going back to work and my partner will be watching the baby a few days a week. I'm worried the baby will be delayed because of not enough stimulation.

I can't figure out how to bring this up without it just sounding like criticism.

Am I overreacting and/or overthinking this?

– Concerned Co-parent

Dear Concerned: You are right to understand how important it is to connect verbally with babies. Narrating your activities will acquaint your child with human speech and language. It’s also a good way to get through days that can be long and tiring.

But your partner is also narrating the day to your baby – just using different language patterns.

“Nonsense sounds” mimic the music of language, and your baby will hear these and start to imitate them. When you and your partner hold your baby close, make eye contact, and mirror or imitate your baby’s sounds, your child may laugh – this is a delightful example of early humor emerging.

My overall point is that it’s all good. Verbal or babble: the connection is the thing.

One way to help your partner with parenting during the time you’re at work would be to encourage them to join neighborhood groups of other parents and children. This might be challenging for an introvert, but being around others will expose both parent and baby to stimulating experiences and lots of opportunities for learning.

I highly recommend the work of T. Berry Brazelton, whose compassionate and commonsense advice has influenced generations of thoughtful parents. Check him out on YouTube, and read his book: “Touchpoints-Birth to Three,” written with co-author Joshua Sparrow (2006, De Capo Lifelong Books).

https://www.arcamax.com/healthandspirit/lifeadvice/askamy/s-2701677?fs

Related news link from this week: https://www.iflscience.com/baby-talk-seems-to-be-a-universal-language-across-the-globe-64580

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Man, every once in a while I forget how incredibly, uselessly intense parents of babies and toddlers can be - especially with the first one!

So, yeah. There are whole societies out there where people hardly speak to infants and toddlers at all except to get them to sleep or give them direct instructions, but somehow, they all do learn to talk. Unless you lock your child in a closet all day and don't interact with them at all, you cannot possibly screw up language development that badly. Promise.

I should write something substantiative but I admit I LOLed. Oh, anxious parent. *pets LW gently*

In those societies, the babies are usually around lots of people who are talking lots of the time, so if baby does only ever spend time with its parents, and its parents only communicate via text messages, it could actually be a problem, especially if they're still pandemic-isolating. Therapists are seeing weird delays come up with kids who've been isolated with only their parents too much, it's a really strange way to grow up.

However I suspect LW is doing plenty of talking and it's fine.

This is true. However, given that LW says that Partner will be home with the kid some days of the week, I'm assuming the other days will be spent with other people.

Ah! I had assumed LW was taking the other days, but letter doesn't actually say that, you're right. If baby is going to daycare or Grandma the other days, you're fine, LW, there will be plenty of interaction.

And even if Partner's going to be at home with kid five days a week, LW is going to be home evenings and weekends; depending on sleep schedules, it's entirely possible that kid will still be spending half their waking hours with LW around.

Well, as melannen said above, people are extra worried about babies being socialized these days due to Covid. I think it's actually good that the parents have different communication styles, as otherwise it would just be more of the same and the baby wouldn't learn to adapt to different people as much. But if the other parent is now going to be more on their own with the baby, and anyway the baby is going to be getting to the noisy babble-almost-words stage pretty soon, it's likely their behavior will change anyhow.

Edited 2022-07-26 23:15 (UTC)

I have to say, I don’t really get what introversion has to do to this. When I talk to infants, it’s functionally talking to myself, which is a thing I also do plenty when I’m home completely alone, no extroversion required. It’s not like making small talk with adults.

Yeah, to the extent I imitate "small talk" with babies, it's more joking to myself - e.g., they babble at me, I say, "Hm, you make a very good point there," and that sort of thing.

I talked to my cats before I had kids. It's not that different, except that the infant is more likely to respond.

Oh, also I think some people conflate introversion with shyness, quietness, diffidence, etc. (there's a whole laundry list of stuff that isn't necessarily a package deal). Some people don't talk a lot, period, even to themselves, pets, babies, etc. While a lot of those people are probably also introverts, far from all introverts are like that.