How come people talk in high pitched voices when...?

Question

How come people talk in high pitched voices when it comes to babies?

Answer 1

because they respond more to high pitched voices. They eventually think it's funny & laugh.  

Answer 2

It is called motherease, like a language for babies from their moms.

Lots of people do this. It just seems weird if you talk to them exactly like an adult, isnt it?

Answer 3

The high pitched voice normally gets and holds a baby's attention and it usually produces a smile or laugh, but all in all, I think talking too much gibberish to a baby can be damaging to the way they learn to speak. Take my best friend's cousin for example. He's 8 and his parents still talk to him like that! He only learned to speak in complete (well, almost complete anyway) sentences when he was around 5. They still call juice "juicy wuicy" and they refer to him in the third person: "Does nathan want a milky?"  They say he has a super mild form of autism, but I personally think that it's from them being complete idiots when they interact with him. (He also breast fed until he was 4....) Then on the other hand, my best friend refuses to talk gibberish to her 13 month old daughter and she's now able to get rudimentary sentences out and is able to say at least 19 words! I think baby talk has a big impact on the way children learn

Answer 4

Seems to come naturally to everyone doesnt it? They tend to respond way better to high voices, when my father talks to my son in a deep voice he seems to look scared but the second he goes to a higher voice my baby is ALL smiles!

Answer 5

I don't know, my husband does that in this baby voice and it drives me crazy. You are supposed to talk to a baby like you would to anyone else. It really annoys me when people do that, sorry don't mean to offend anyone.  

Answer 6

It actually has a name. Educators and child development folks call it "Parentese"-- they think people do it because a high pitch gets and (sometimes) holds a very young child's attention.  

Answer 7

I don't know.It does drive me crazy sometime though.I try to talk to my son as normal as possible.I don't want to get in the habit of baby talk and still being doing when he is 3,4 & 5 like some do.Also a lot of people who do baby talk have a habit of giving nicknames to everything.Like nanck for drink,or binky or "pa" for pacifier.I just hate things like that so I never did the whole baby talk thing.Some people like it,some don't.Thankfully my baby hates it.He cries when people talk to him like that.

Answer 8

For some reasons babies love baby talk. You eventually find what your baby likes and doesn't like by experimenting with different voices and faces. Most of the time they like the high pitched voices and goofy faces.

Answer 9

voice tone is actualy a natural part of animal communication, high voices is mostly used in positive or attention seeking communication, while low voice to send negative communication

just like other animals i guess we do it automatical, anyone who ever had a dog probably heard how their trainers underline using voice tone as part of communcation

its pretty much universal ;)

Answer 10

because babies (and animals) respond better to it