According to the linguist who gave a presentation to our parents group, babble is defined as a series of short consonant-vowel sounds repeated over and over: “da da da”, “ba ba ba”, etc. And, also according to the linguist, it is the single most important milestone in speech development. Babbling typically starts around 7 months (Ruby is 5.25 months), but there’s a wide range that is normal.
Today, Ruby started saying “da da da da da da” while lying on her blanket! Kate was home from work so we both got to enjoy it. She did it many times, with four or five “da”s in each string. So, we are declaring today as Ruby’s official “first babble” day.
And no, we’re not counting “dada” as her first word because:
- a) as far as she knows, my name is “Papa”, and
- b) she wasn’t using the word in context — she was just babbling.