The first year of the pandemic alone saw the birth of 300K children nationwide, according to Statistics Canada.

Being born early puts these babes behind the eight ball in reaching their speech and language milestones compared to their full-term friends. I am talking about understanding language, learning words, making sounds, and even their social development.

Let’s start with what we know about soothers for babies— they help with learning to self-soothe (that’s a huge life skill), babies are born wanting to suck and there is research to suggest that using a soother reduces the risk of SIDS.

What if I told you that you can do 3 things to help your toddler learn the language? And this can be done anytime and in any language.

"Parentese" is fully grammatical speech that involves real words, stretched-out vowels and exaggerated tones of voice. It sounds happy and it signals total engagement with the child.

Babies begin to understand language long before they begin to talk. You can talk to your baby and the more that you talk about what’s happening in the moment, the easier it will be for your baby to understand words.