Casey Mariez is a mother who loves to capture memories of her 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥ren, even the small conversations they have. One such conversation was extra special because it was with her 7-month-old daughter. Mariez responded to her daughter’s 𝑏𝑎𝑏𝑦-babble as if she understood what she was saying, and her daughter kept babbling happily the entire time.
The family lives in the United States but loves to travel all around the world. In a video from September 2016, Mariez’s daughter is sitting on the couch while her mother films her. The 𝑏𝑎𝑏𝑦 girl is talking non-stop, using mostly vowel sounds like “ah” and “oh.” Her mother talks back in full sentences, asking her daughter, “Is that so?” The 𝑏𝑎𝑏𝑦 swings her arms and pats the couch in front of her. This is how infants often explore their surroundings.
The 𝑏𝑎𝑏𝑦 is dressed in an adorable outfit, with lime-green pants, a black t-shirt and a black flower headband. She is smiling throughout the video with a look of pure joy on her face from the sound of her mother’s voice. The little girl keeps her eyes on her mother for nearly the entire length of the video; she clearly has a favorite person in her life already!
The daughter is speaking so much it makes you wonder what babies are trying to say, or if they are even saying anything at all. Mariez is a good mother for talking back to her daughter and giving her plenty of attention at that age. This type of interaction helps 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥ren form healthy attachments later in life.
Parenting.com says that there is an explanation behind each speech-milestone a 𝑏𝑎𝑏𝑦 experiences. At 5 to 7 months a 𝑏𝑎𝑏𝑦 is still using predominantly vowel sounds. “It’s harder to produce consonants because they require interaction between the tongue and the lips,” says Roberta Golinkoff, Ph.D., director of the University of Delaware Infant Language Project in Newark. “It’s a big deal.”
The parenting website also suggests that you talk back to your 𝑏𝑎𝑏𝑦 as much as possible and try to teach them the names of objects. Jenny Saffran, Ph.D., director of the Infant Learning Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison suggests, “Notice where your 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥 is looking before you label an object. It’s very adaptive for babies–and a lot of parents do it naturally.”
Mariez says that there is a personal reason behind her decision to film her 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥ren’s lives. “I film my kids because I have almost no memories of my 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥hood; I can remember a couple things from kindergarten, and then it’s mostly blank until age 10 and up. I want my kids to know what their 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥hoods were like, so I film them from my perspective–unscripted,” Mariez wrote in her YouTube channel description.
She continued, “We watch a lot of documentaries, we talk about social justice issues, we travel throughout the world, and I try to say ‘yes’ rather than ‘no’ in all areas. I’m passionate about education, equality, mental and physical healthcare, and healing trauma.” With all the videos on Mariez’s channel, her family will never run out of memories to cherish
