Why do people talk to babies in ickle-cootsy-wootsy-voices, rather than normally?

Question

Take a normal intelligent person. See a baby in a pram and they sddenly coo all gurgly-wurgly who-s a cootsy-wootsy-pootsy-little popsickle ... and all that. Ah ba-ba-bababa, etc.
Now I read somewhere that babies have a basic knowledge of language at a very early age, and they are trying to comprehend what is said to them in plain English. So what do they think that the gibbering cooing actually means?

Answer 1

i dont, i talk to them in a conspiring voice. so that my neice thinks in teaching her baby to take over the world or to be cynical, at least. and this baby's aunt (also my neice) carrys the baby about and says "this is the corner where they keep crisps, dont touch! theyre all mine!" and "this is the caravan in the garden where we do bad things" and "ill take you to the pub for your first drink when youre 10"


also when youre a child, your parents and adults are talking and it's all very boring, so i guess it keeps the baby interested when you pull funny faces and make funny noises, rather than you ignoring it and talking in low voices to your friends.

Answer 2

I watched a programme with Robert Winston on it, and he said that they respond better to all the cooing and stuff. If you just talk normally they will have no interest what so ever in what you are saying.

I found this on a bbc page,

Use loving kind words - babies can tell from the tone of your voice whether you're speaking positively. Speak quietly and face-to-face with your baby to cut out distractions.
Use 'baby talk' - this is a higher-pitched way of talking and is preferred by babies all over the world. It's practised universally and in every language and you'll probably find you do it automatically when talking to your baby

Answer 3

Human do this instinctively. I heard somewhere a while back that they actually did a study and found that babies actually respond more to a higher pitched voice and to the cootsy-wootsy-pootsy stuff.

Answer 4

I think that may be old-school. I know my mom does that with my daughter.

We imitated sounds our daught made - ba ba ba, for example - but other than that we speak english and some french with her to get her used to the sounds of the languages.

Also, it may be a nervous habit with babies for some people. Like they don't know what to say to a baby and there is uncomfortable silence so they make those jibberish sounds.

Answer 5

Because it makes babies laugh. When you make all the ichy ooey noises, you screw your face up and it is this expression they are smiling at. Babies can also tell if you are a lovely person and will respond to you. Babies are far more intelligent than people realise.

Answer 6

Because imitating their sounds actually helps with their language development - to a certain age. Its in one of the Dr. Karp books.

Answer 7

Because when people see something cute their brain shuts off temporarily and they gush out gibberish. Seriously, I don't know why people do that, I can't stand it, and I never do that. I know that once kids get to about age 2 and above they respond MUCH better to people that talk to them regularly than talking down to them.

Answer 8

I find babies smile & giggle when you do this to them. They're really too young to understand proper words, so I'd imagine they find the cooing noises comforting.

Answer 9

because most babies are too cute to talk to them in a normal voice. It just happens and plus it makes babies laugh.

Answer 10

people talk 2 babies in that form because the yfigure dat da understand more and da want 2 make da baby happy and laugh