Should you speak to your baby like an adult?
Experts weigh in on the viral parenting trend
- A mum’s video ditching baby talk with her toddler has gone viral, racking up 5M views.
- Preply finds 223K daily searches for “talking to baby like a person” on TikTok.
- Preply’s language experts weigh in on the trend with insights on early language development.
Mother’s Day is a celebration of love, care, and nurturing – but it’s also a great time to recognise one of the most important roles mothers and caregivers play: teaching language. From a baby’s first words to their ability to form complex sentences, early interactions with parents lay the foundation for communication.
Lately, a new wave of parenting content on TikTok has been making waves, highlighting a surprising debate: Should you talk to your baby like they’re an adult? One viral video, with a staggering 7.5 million views, showcases a mother engaging her infant in full, sophisticated conversations – no baby talk, no simplified phrases.
Online language learning platform Preply weighs in on what it means for parents. With TikTok playing a bigger role in parenting conversations than ever before, experts are diving into the science behind how babies acquire language and whether this viral method actually works.
The growing trend: Ditching the baby talk
TikTok is buzzing with videos of parents swapping baby talk for full, adult-style conversations with their little ones. The reasoning? Engaging babies in structured, mature dialogue is believed to accelerate their language development.
The viral video boasting 7.5M views, is just the tip of the iceberg, reflecting a growing fascination with this parenting approach. According to Preply, the trend is surging in popularity – just today, the search term “talking to baby like a person” has amassed 223K searches on TikTok, with 81% of searches coming from women.
Anna Pyshna, spokesperson at Preply, explains why this trend has caught so much attention:
“Parents today are more invested than ever in giving their children the best possible start. Social media has made them hyper-aware of different parenting techniques, and they’re eager to try new methods if they believe it will benefit their child’s development. The idea of treating your baby like a ‘mini-adult’ makes sense intuitively – after all, they’re eventually going to speak like one, so why not start early? What matters most is that children are surrounded by rich, engaging language from an early age.”
Linguistic perspective: What the research says
While social media might suggest one way to boost language skills, linguistic research tells a more nuanced story. Preply sought the insights of Melissa Baese-Berk, Associate Linguistics Professor at the University of Chicago, who sheds light on the debate:
“Many people think that speaking to babies like you speak to adults is better because it will teach children to speak in an adult way. However, a fascinating aspect of language acquisition is that kids learn to speak regardless of whether their input is adult-like or more simplified child-directed speech. Either form can help kids learn well!”
She also emphasises that language learning isn’t just about conversation – other forms of interaction, like music and storytelling, can be just as effective:
“Lullabies and storytelling are good tools for language learning because they are engaging in ways that everyday conversation might not be. Storytelling and reading books to kids often involve multiple modalities (spoken language and, for example, pictures in books), which might help children pay closer attention to the language that is being used.”
In short, while speaking to babies like adults isn’t necessarily wrong, it’s not the only path to strong language skills.
The takeaway: A balanced approach to language learning
So, should you ditch baby talk and start chatting with your infant like they’re your co-worker? Not necessarily. While the trend of speaking to babies like adults is gaining traction, linguists suggest that a mix of conversational speech, storytelling, music, and interactive play is the best way to support language development.
Parents and caregivers play a crucial role in shaping a child’s ability to communicate, and ultimately, the most important thing is to surround babies with rich, engaging, and diverse language experiences.
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