You may want your baby to develop a love of learning at an early age. One of the best ways to do this is to start talking to him or her from the time he or she is a baby. Tell your baby everything that is going on in his or her world - what he or she is feels, sees, and experiences in the day. Talking to your baby helps with language skills, stimulating the senses, and developing a sense of interaction. The ability to hear and speak language comes before the ability to understand it, so when you are talking to your baby, he or she will pick up a lot just from your general tone and voice inflections.

The most important thing to remember when talking to your baby is to be consistent about it throughout the day. Talk to your baby about everything that happens during the day, from the time he or she wakes up until it's time to go to bed. Just go about your day as normal, but keep talking to your baby while you're doing things.

Even mundane activities like going to the store or running errands can be a great opportunity to tell your baby about what's going on. In the car, point out cars, trucks, houses, and buildings. At home, talk about different types of furniture, toys, and items in the kitchen, for example. Keep it simple, but don't talk down to your baby or use "baby talk". Just use clear, simple sentences. Your baby will eventually pick up on your speaking patterns and model them as he or she gets older.

Another way to talk to your baby is to keep a photo album or scrapbook of important people or things in your his or her life. Your baby may have some favorite interests - animals, cars, toys, etc. By putting pictures of these things in a scrapbook and talking to your baby about them, you keep the words fresh in his or her mind, even when your baby cannot see the things directly. Likewise, putting pictures of important people in the scrapbook - grandparents, aunts, uncles, other family members, or friends - allows the baby to learn names and keep their memory fresh even when they are not visiting.

Once your baby seems to have grasped the "people and things" scrapbook, you may want to move on to a scrapbook of common actions and experiences. This can be customized to include things that your baby has done recently, such as traveling, or can include common actions like sleeping, eating, and playing. By doing this, you are presenting the concept of verbs to your baby through pictures that he or she can relate to. When your baby sees a picture and relates it to an action, not just an object, this is another critical part of language development. By combining object words with action words, your baby will begin to understand how to put together a complete sentence. This will open the door to more advanced communication skills as he or she gets older.