Oh ... also on the baby talk discussion:
Correcting them when they start talking and mispronouncing words. I am such a stickler for this. I never accept the incorrect words and slow the word down syllable by syllable until she says it correctly. A lot of my friends don't do this and IMHO is probably why they have other made up words for the real thing. Or they say 'yes' and then re-pronounce it for the child but again IMHO only reinforces that they said it right. Of course we have a few words that I allowed to stay in the vocab. Such as wawa for water. I would use wawa when asking her if she wanted any so of course it extended the time she used it. Than the cute made up word that I thought was cuter than the real word and so wanted to keep was her umbrella. It was something like abelle. But I still corrected it and sadly is no longer in existence.
